Discover Statesville
Welcome to "Discover Statesville," the show that takes you on a captivating journey through the heart of one of North Carolina's most charming towns. Co-hosted by community advocates, Richard Griggs and Cindy Sutton, this weekly show brings you the pulse of Statesville, recording live at various spots throughout Statesville in partnership with Sow Media studios.
Join Richard and Cindy as they uncover the hidden gems and local treasures that make Statesville truly special. From the top-notch attractions and exciting events to the remarkable individuals who shape the community, "Discover Statesville" promises to leave no stone unturned.
Hungry for a culinary adventure? Tune in for their delightful restaurant reviews, where they'll guide you to the best places to eat in town. Whether you're a resident or a visitor, this podcast is your ultimate guide to all the things that make Statesville great.
You're invited to come along on this immersive journey, as "Discover Statesville" brings you closer to the heart of our vibrant town. Be prepared to be entertained, inspired, and enlightened each week, as Richard and Cindy share their passion for all things Statesville!
Discover Statesville
City of Statesville: Budget Meeting 05/21/24
Staff again for all the work that it takes to put a budget together and to run our city. We are greatly appreciative of that. Ron, are you going to kind of introduce it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought I would just take five minutes.
Speaker 1:You do what you need to do, and then it seems as if we ask what way you want to go, and then it just Turns into sort of everybody asked what they want. So that's how we're gonna do, okay.
Speaker 2:So I'm just going to run through a few things that are kind of key to this budget and then turn it to Tim to see if he has anything that he wants to add, and then we need to. There's one specific decision that will have to be made and that's a decision about the CBB's budget. I think I've said this previously and it's kind of a call that the council will have to make. I didn't really. We've proposed it, as it always is, but the CBB has made a specific ask this year that I want y'all to hear and Tim is gonna walk through that and Cindy is here if there are questions. So just by way of reminder from the retreat the things that came out of the retreat that were significant, that we do have in the budget there's a 3% COLA proposed for employees.
Speaker 2:That was that was that ranked highest, higher than the merit Police tasers and body cams. Those were. That was $500,000 a year. For the next three years we got a $400,000 grant. So that this first year in the PD we've kind of got a buy From the capital side. Were the first highest ranking was fire station number five. That's not in here. I think we're to the point buying property but we're not ready to build because fire station five is, say, six million dollars, with apparatus of at least a million and then people. So that's that's its
Speaker 2:own discussion when we get there and that's. You know there's no media in the room, but in my opinion that's probably got its own section of the tax rate that we're going to have to figure out how to carve out. That's not a decision we have to. How to carve out that's not a decision we have to make today. The second priority was recreation and pools, greenways and the Housing Authority Park. We've got some greenway improvements in there. Kimbrough Park is in there, but at this point there's no bigger capital from the recreation side to speak of because it's just, it didn't rank as high. The building standards proposed department is in there. We've allocated about $765,000 from our fund balance to establish it. That would put it in place and would be operational in september of 2025. So if it stays, we would move it forward on that time frame. And finally, the housing fund the 190 000 to the united way to be a partner with them and mooresville in the county to go into the housing fund.
Speaker 2:So that's what we pulled from the retreat additionally there's a 7% increase proposed for water and sewer rates. That's directly associated with heavy capital needs in water super. We had that programmed in for I believe it was last year. We should have believe it was last year. We should have done it probably last year, but with everything that changed last year through the reappraisal week, we held off till this year. So that was a 5% scheduled increase.
Speaker 2:Because of all the excess capital that we're needing and then taking some very preliminary steps on preparing for the Fourth Creek wastewater treatment plant expansion at some point in the future. We need to get some revenue coming in to build a capital reserve fund, get us started down that line. So that's for preparation purposes. The police department and the DEC are both programmed into this budget through a combination of fund balance and borrowing from the electric utility. We are getting an $8.8 million influx into the electric, which basically washes that. It's not using the money that we currently have fund balance that we're going to take place from. So that is what we are proposing along those two, those two lines. Uh, those are the big things I wanted to point out. Tim, did you have anything?
Speaker 3:you, I'm not saying either way is right or wrong. They both have their merit, I guess, to you, tim. I've worked with a lot of finance directors. Some of them are purposely pessimistic on the revenues and purposely pessimistic on what costs are going to be. Are these numbers, in your opinion, absolutes, or you've got a little wiggle room in there?
Speaker 5:I'll say they're very firm. Okay, let's just even say plus or minus 1%. Okay, and the county gives us guidance on property taxes. Right, they've given us four outlets leading up to this. They have always said plus or minus 1%. So I think that's possible, okay. And then sales tax as long as people keep spending money, we should be on for our sales tax. Okay, I'm not passionate about this, just want to know where I am now.
Speaker 6:Here's one email from you. What it said to remind you of the vehicles you know money in the vehicles you want me to find them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not sure which vehicles you talked about well, oh, was it at least. Oh, the lease yeah so so that's a good question. So we, you know, a couple years ago we were kind of trending toward trying to lease more vehicles because we were basically trying to get more fill holes that we had with, you know, trying to go the lease route. It's not been good for us. We are pivoting back away to just buying buying the vehicles and Getting away from the leases. It turned out to be a difficult.
Speaker 2:There are certain ones we still will, but as a whole we're not.
Speaker 6:Sorry, we know contract with five years?
Speaker 2:Oh, we're not contract for five years? All right, yes, for some of those leases.
Speaker 3:Be it fair about it, it got you over a hump.
Speaker 1:It got what. Got you over a hump, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:It did and we might do some of it sporadically in the future, but it's not going to be the end of it.
Speaker 1:Okay, ron, the $20 million that the legislature got us for the replacement of the spline Splint, whatever the spline Not spine right.
Speaker 2:I thought it was started as a spine and it turned into the spline.
Speaker 1:Well, anyway, do we have that money?
Speaker 2:Yes, that money has been going toward and I don't know, bill, you might need to speak to this how much. I think we received everything. The design has all been well. Come on up, bill, tell them where it's at.
Speaker 7:The estimate came in like 1992 or something like that, was it? Well, you come on up, okay.
Speaker 1:That's being invested.
Speaker 5:We have not received the cash $20 million which has been approved in the grant.
Speaker 1:So is it a reimbursement, reimbursement grant. Oh, okay, all right, okay, that's all.
Speaker 1:I needed to know, okay, all right. Well, it seems to me, ron, that and we don't really know anything about the CDP request, so we need to. We know about the building standards request, but I guess we need to review the building standards request and the CVB request, because those are, and then the water and sewer. Those are the three things that would require monies that are in the budget. Well, no, the building standards is in the budget, cvb is not in the budget, water and sewer increase is not budgeted.
Speaker 1:But those are the things that require a decision as to how we're going to deal with and then and then, beyond that, if it's in the budget and we want to do away with it, then we'll talk about it. But these are these, okay. So who's going to tell us about the CVB?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going to start. I'm going to start and then I'm going to turn it to Tim. I'm just going to give you some context on what's been going on for the last three years with the CBV. So Amy, david and Kosti and I, there was a time I guess it's been two or two plus years ago when this was going down.
Speaker 2:So we had had some conversations with Cindy Sutton and members of the Convention and Visitors Bureau to figure out is there a way that they could get more money coming in to help them be sustainable moving forward? They needed an executive director. They had they were. You were in place, cindy, but it was Cindy was in place but trying to make sure that they had somebody that's gonna be there for the long haul and under the cost breakdown and structure and maybe even arguably now that wasn't gonna happen.
Speaker 2:So we developed a three-year plan and it wasn't anything adopted or anything like that, but everybody kind of nodded their heads and thought it was a good move forward. In that plan there was incremental additional funding that went to the CBB over time. Most of it was coming from their, their work and in the economy of building, the occupancy tax funds, but also through straight budget uh, allocations from the civic center, so building building, their allocation from the city, understanding it wasn't going to be what they wanted or needed moving forward. But ultimately it went from 27,000 in year one to 70,000 in year two, plus that 27, so roughly a hundred thousand what page is that wrong?
Speaker 8:oh, it's not in there.
Speaker 2:This is just this is based on our phone call earlier, I thought I'd, and then in year three, so those were incremental changes. In year three the idea was to try to bring the Civic Center and the CBB more together, potentially have, you know, coinciding with Kenny's retirement having a position that kind of ran, worked with, dealt with both organizations and essentially took the money off the books of the CBB to help with their cost structure. And that was kind of a creative way to try to help them out without going back to the legislature to change any funding formula.
Speaker 2:We have special legislation and then there is the traditional funding formula for CBBs and tourism. So I wanted to tell you we've been working with them for the last going on now three years to help you. We've been working with them for the last now going on now three years to help. But now there's going to be a new, another ask, because we haven't really followed through on number or year three, because we're just not there, we're not ready from a personnel standpoint to do it. So that's a lot of words, glad to answer any questions. What's the request? That's what I wanted to say. Tim's going to give you the request.
Speaker 3:This is a decision-making matter in the budget.
Speaker 2:Yes, we have put, we have dealt with the CVB in our traditional way, basically based on the formula, and that's kind of what I walked through in year one and two. That's what's in the budget. They're making a request to pull from the Occupancy Tax Fund balance to help them more directly, and that's what the 10-1.
Speaker 1:Okay, so in this budget as it stands now, the money for the CDB is through the allocation of their 1, 5th of the yes, none of these other.
Speaker 2:Well, and I guess some of this is in there, you're going to explain all that.
Speaker 5:Yeah, fundamentally nothing has really changed year over year how we've been historically allocating things. We're not even actually looking to change the allocation. The CDB continues to invest and grow and with that they wanted to add really three components next year and I'll go through those first three. The destination experience manager right now the CBB does not have any bonafide employees. No employees, that would be about a $70,000 ask. That would be permanent. Right, we're hiring somebody. They're going to be on the books next year, the year after that. So cycle NC, mountains to coast. Cindy mentioned this last night at council. You know it's going to draw in how many.
Speaker 9:Five million dollars, I can't remember the exact number A thousand bike riders, three thousand people.
Speaker 5:Three thousand people 3,000 people, and so, with different marketing handouts, we're looking at about 50,000 investment there One time and I'm recurring New conference is 50,000, and then obviously with every budget there's inflationary items. So the ask is 180,000 from what we've historically done, and so my question to council is do we want CDB to fund that 180,000 themselves out of their fund balance, or do we want to take some money out of the Civic Center, which also benefits from the advocacy tax? And give that to the CDB.
Speaker 1:That 180 ask replaces the previous asks, Replaces the 25 and the. I mean, is this going to be on?
Speaker 5:top of the. It is incremental, it's on top, correct.
Speaker 1:But that's not in the budget.
Speaker 2:You said yeah, that's in the. Everything that we've been doing is basically coming out of Kenny's. Kenny's Kenny's new civic Center is allocating those funds.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what is that amount?
Speaker 5:It would be right. Now the budget shows the normal $70,000 coming out of the Civic Center. So the question before the group is do we add another $180,000 to come out of the Civic Center or just step back and say you know what CBB, you have your own budget, you fund the 180s.
Speaker 8:Can I say something right here so?
Speaker 8:I'm the liaison on that board and basically what's happening there is. The occupancy tax has been consistently growing over the last several years. They're working really, really hard with the hoteliers. They have created a system of talking to the hoteliers to see what kind of conferences and different things are coming into the community or what can come into the community. They created these formularies where they are drawing these people here to Statesville as opposed to surrounding areas.
Speaker 8:With all that being said, there is an occupancy tax. Of course, the whole failure. They're coming here, they're spending money here and the occupancy tax, which is state regulated. That money goes into that fund. But because of the way that our civic center was created and this fund was set up with when we created it 25 years ago, the CBV is getting a certain percentage In their minds and that is covering their marketing, which I mean they don't have any employees, but it's covering their marketing and all of the tourism, all of the different people that we've had coming in, and they're doing it with the funds and things that they have.
Speaker 8:Well, they've shown us in those meetings last night where they're incrementally increasing it at least $200,000 every couple of years. Long story short, they don't have a location. They feel like they're doing good and valid work with the plan of bringing more hotels to Statesville at least five, they showed us one last night. They have four more that they would love to do here. But at the same time they need money, and so Cindy has been doing that work as a contract employee kind of, I think and so they're asking for that employee. They're asking for dollars to help bring in more dollars to say to Is there some?
Speaker 3:way we incrementally get there. Their ask is $180,000. Okay, that's to gear up and go for the day one, right? No, their ask is more than $180,000.
Speaker 8:Their ask is $180,000 plus what they're getting.
Speaker 6:They're getting $70,000.
Speaker 8:Right. So I guess my question is what is the situation with the Civic Center? And I guess me, coming from a bigger city why have they not ever been combined before, like not working together? Why is that? Why are they kind of separated? Because normally if you go into cities you have the visitor bureau and you have a civic center. Normally they kind of coincide with one another. So if you're asking, I understand the ask, but are they going to be city employees? Not at this point.
Speaker 1:So it's still going would be a different arrangement where they and the DSDC could possibly be part of the city directly. But we haven't gotten there yet.
Speaker 8:So is the Civic Center doing advertisement like the Visitor Bureau is doing? I guess that's my question. What is the state of the Civic Center compared to the Visitor Bureau?
Speaker 2:Well, there's some overlap and, Kenny, we're sending you to the police. There's some overlap. I think that CVB is doing hardcore marketing for the city and to include the Civic Center, which I believe is in their charter. The Civic Center is doing more of the day-to-day interactions with customers, you know, making sure that the experiences that when they're here are good ones. There's some marketing that's also going on there as well. So there's so there's some redundancy, but the bigger marketing efforts are coming through the city.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm still feeling my way through this. I'm not opposed to giving them more money, but you've got the fund balance in the city center. That's where the big ticket out of, like a roof or a parking lot. Roofs and parking lots have about the same class. By the time your roof wears out, you've got to repay the parking lot. What's the next big capital item? I want to do something to help these folks and we leave the city center strapped for some big capital project down the road. Are they in pretty good shape on all that?
Speaker 2:Well, parking is all. We have another resurfacing project, kenny, at some point soon-ish, but that's the big one I can think of.
Speaker 1:I would say expansion of the facility at some point is a big ticket item and um is participation out of that fund already included in the parking deck um, I don't know if tim's got it programmed into the parking deck we had planned on using some of it for that.
Speaker 2:yes, I don't know if he's got it, but he has a plan on it.
Speaker 9:So who's working at the depot if they don't have an employee?
Speaker 8:Police department's been in Well.
Speaker 2:Cindy is their contract executive director, so she's got a spot over at the depot now. So she's got a spot over at the depot now and I guess the destination experience manager would as well when that person is hired.
Speaker 1:That's a new hire, cindy's paid out of the existing monies that they get from their share of the occupancy tax fund and the additional money we give them. I don't think you have any. I think they're missing a critical part.
Speaker 9:So the occupancy tax legislation mandates that only 35% of total collections that tourism destination authority gets can be used for administration and staff, which is why the CVV has never had an executive director, Because one you're not gonna find an executive director for $40,000, $50,000. That's why it's out there.
Speaker 1:But I thought we reviewed that and there's nothing in the state legislation that controls it. Your bylaws control the 35%.
Speaker 9:It's in the state legislation.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I mean I so. So if that, if that, if you weren't handcuffed with that, then this request wouldn't be.
Speaker 9:The reality is, for the past three years, I've been doing the work myself. Well, actually, I've been paying out of the pocket my staff to help me get it done and I'm not going to do that well, but there's no limitation on marketing, right?
Speaker 8:yeah, she's paying out of her pocket.
Speaker 1:Huh, she's paying out of her pocket. She's not paying out of her pocket. What I'm saying is the 35% doesn't say that Spokology can't be paid for services that they provide to the organization.
Speaker 9:The CBB is paying out of the marketing side to outsource the Spokology for me to be the executive director. But that's why I'm not employing, that's why they haven't hired an executive director, because they can't within 35%, right. So the ask for the staff member, the destination experience manager and the original $70,000 that the city has given to the CPP is being used to support groups that are coming in, will be coming in for the Civic Center. So the work we're doing is to bring groups, go to these conferences, bring groups in, do the marketing, to bring people in to the Civic Center. So we can have that. But one person cannot be the executive director and then manage. I mean, I spent five days with the group that was here last week.
Speaker 2:You can't do that and be the executive director so that's, that's what that one way you may want to look at this, if you're, you know, if you're looking at it from an incremental standpoint the Destination Experience Manager. It's needed, but it's there, it's there, it's there next year and it's there next year. The other three are these are one year. These are one year requests.
Speaker 9:Not the new conferences. The conferences we're going into are to bring groups, and they're all but still those are the site in North Carolina.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those could be. I mean, if you hire a person, that person's there, I mean that position's there and the others are actions and well, non-inflationary guidance.
Speaker 9:For this year, Ron, but we're competing with Morrisville, who gets 100% of their occupancy tax and has a $1.5 million budget.
Speaker 2:No, I get that. I get that. I'm just trying to point out that a person is permanent and a person is a lot easier. It's a lot harder to because you asked about incremental it's harder to cut a person than cut actions such as you going out. That's the only point I'm trying to make.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm trying to find a way there.
Speaker 1:Right, and it's not Cindy's fault. I mean, I think we should have had more about this request before now and, if it's possible, well, maybe we can get it resolved today. We should have had more about this request before now.
Speaker 1:And if it's possible, well, maybe we can get it resolved. I'm not opposed to getting it resolved today, but it also wouldn't be the end of the world if this got resolved over a different date than today, because there's a lot more to the story all the way around. There's a lot more to the story all the way around.
Speaker 3:We agree on the. When I came to the city I didn't fully appreciate what went on with the hotel and you that congenerate. I was not aware of that, and those are pretty impressive. It's reasonable to assume that if you're going to have an organization, you're going to have to have somebody that's going to manage it At least. Well, we're more than starting out, but she's wearing a lot of hats. I'm not sure we can take all those hats away.
Speaker 1:We can't take any of them awayindy's doing a hell of a job right so then let's look at the inflationary out.
Speaker 3:That's a small item. I mean, what if we did away with inflationary item and say, okay, you got inflation for a year or two, you just got to tighten the belt and move on, and we'll try to make that happen more than later? What's the bottom dollar? You think you can operate efficiently for an organization and realize some growth in revenue. That's it.
Speaker 9:The budget I put together will do that. It's a lot of work into this budget. I understand.
Speaker 1:Well, we're using our fund balance. The city of Statesville, not the city of Tennessee, is using some of its fund balance to balance our budget. Is that correct? Yes, okay.
Speaker 3:So what's the impact if we fund the request? Yeah, where?
Speaker 10:would it come from Our fund balance?
Speaker 1:It would come from the Civic. Center fund balance.
Speaker 3:Okay, then let's look internally at that. If we take it out of the Civic Center fund balance, are we going to be able to meet the capital needs of the Civic Center over the next three, five years without working a hardship on getting it?
Speaker 1:I'd say no, and the reason I say that is because, if you look at it, unless we didn't spend any money, I mean serious money we are not adding to the. From what I can tell, we are not adding to the Civic Center fund balance. From what I can tell, we are not adding to the Civic Center fund balance. This year's budget does not return any of the money we're receiving from our occupancy tax to enhance the fund balance. So we're spending all the money that we're taking in.
Speaker 8:How does this year's budget not add to what they've increased, what they were bringing in? No, I'm not saying we're not getting more taxes.
Speaker 1:I'm saying there's not going to be any leftover money to support. We're not going to add to that $2.2 million. So you can say are we going to have the money there in three to five years to do what we need to do? I don't know what we need to do, but we're not going to have more money than that, unless something else changes.
Speaker 5:When is Kenny retiring? When is Kenny retiring? End of this year.
Speaker 2:End of retire. But what does that? Are we configuring? How that looks isn't well talked about a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but we have. We see we haven't worked through any of that stuff completely. I mean we've never been a conversation. There have been conversations about it.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to run Kitty off, but if Kitty's not retired we're not consolidating those two issues I see we're waiting for at least some of them.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:I mean she's got more responsibility. You might have to give her more money.
Speaker 2:I would almost, if you're in favor of doing. If you're in favor, and I apologize, I thought that this would be not an easier discussion, but I thought that this was the time to do it.
Speaker 1:It is a good time to get it started. I think some people have different bits and pieces, like what Amy just said has been talked about but but has not been. You know there's been no vote of the council to how we want to go forward on that. What would you want to can?
Speaker 2:I can I can I? Mention one thing. The only thing I would caution you on is again getting back to the 70 000. I'd rather tim and kenny and I, or and I or Cindy, go back and scrub Civic Center budget rather than take it out from balance, if we can do that, because you don't want to because, again, it's every, potentially every year, but you don't want to take that out from the process of scrubbing that to get the thing launched.
Speaker 3:so she'll have some peace of mind on what the future's gonna look like, because the difference between the difference between what they're getting now and what they're asking for is $180,000. Correct, right? Could we fund that a portion of the year, the first year, then take a look at it and see how much once Kenyon retires, see how much each can screw up out of there and see what we can do in the next year. The only thing.
Speaker 3:I caution about that conversation is that we keep talking about if he's going to retire or whatever. Are we saying we, he's going to retire or whatever? Are we saying we're not going?
Speaker 1:to replace that position. Is that what we're saying? We're saying that we're going to. We're saying that one of the things that's being considered is a restructuring, kind of like what lisa said. How do you, how do you bring these people more?
Speaker 8:right in concert and do we have too many? That's all I'm trying to say. Is there's a lot of information.
Speaker 1:We need to help. We need to help Cindy, okay, and I don't think anybody's saying we don't want to help. I don't think anybody's saying that at all, and I see what Steve's saying. You know, is there some of this that can be deferred? And I don't know what discussion I don't know that I've, even Cindy, talked to you about, you know. I mean, we use our fund balance. Is there some contribution the cdb would make out of their um fund balance?
Speaker 3:but I um because we talked about, you know, advertisement dollars that we were using at the civic center could that not be the same?
Speaker 1:we've done some of that to help them and no, at no harm to the civic center right.
Speaker 3:So, like I'm saying, why could we not say the same for the cycle to the mountain? So, like I'm saying, why could we not say the same for the cycle to the mountain?
Speaker 1:for the mountain to the coast and new conferences too. All I'm trying to say and I tried to look at this and I may have looked at it incorrectly it looks like, without this in the budget at all and with alleged increased revenues at the Civic Center and alleged increased expenses at the Civic Center, that all that we generate from the occupancy tax, whether it's higher or lower or whatever, there's going to be nothing left to supplant the Civic Center fund balance. So we're well and maybe that's what you're saying here we're gonna have to take it out unless unless we, I mean there's not $180,000 in the Civic Center budget to scrub to make room for this 180. Right, and there's not going to be.
Speaker 1:It doesn't appear until we get new hotels, or I mean it seems as if Cindy's done everything she can to get the occupancy of the civic, I mean of the hotels. Probably they're maxing out at some at some times, so it's not as if there's going to be a huge. There will be additional revenues available to the CBB from increased revenues from hotel occupancy, but not up, not a big number. I mean, you know, if it goes up, two hundred thousand dollars total for this year. That'll be forty thousand dollars for them, and maybe that's already budgeted in there, I don't know. But I just want to do this right and I don't want to do it hastily, and I just wonder I mean well, you're advertising for your position right now.
Speaker 9:But for the destination person Now the conversation is going to be bigger because, a year from now you're going to be approaching a job for the new president director, because she can't keep doing it by herself.
Speaker 1:Well, the other thing is we should. There are some things you can go back to the legislature and change without problems. There are some things you can't. One that maybe we could change if Cindy says it's an impediment is that 35% can only go to administrative. You know, if that, if that helps in any way and we can do that, or if it's not as firm as it appears to be and I don't know that, but anyway, we can probably get some help there. So there are several things we can do, but we just need to. How, oh you were, if the city council said no, you were going to play for the destination manager out of fund balance for this year and try to. That would have been okay.
Speaker 1:Well, um, I mean, you know whatever y'all want to do I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm the biggest supporter of cindy and what she's trying to do, but I just want us to be careful that we have. I'm hearing I've got some knowledge, you've got some knowledge, everybody's got some knowledge, but nobody seems to have all the knowledge and I don't think it would take that long to have all that knowledge and figure out what we can do, what we can't do, and make a decision. Or if you want to do something, if you want to do something on it, I mean I don't know, I don't, I don't. If you want to do the whole thing, I'm not gonna say no, but I mean it would seem at a minimum we would maybe want to say we'll find a way to support the destination experience manager today and pay for that, and give us a month or give us till, whatever you want to do. I have a question. It seems like it's not a complete discussion to say, yeah, you're doing a great job, we're going to give you $180,000.
Speaker 3:Have a nice day. So in advertising alone in the Civic Center in 23 we spent $42,000. We're budgeting this year $106,000. So the two items up there is $100,000. Is any of that advertising that we could use some of those funds for? And, to your point, can we find seventy thousand dollars in the general fund to compensate for the?
Speaker 1:maybe, maybe, Jim, maybe you ought to turn to the Civic Center budget.
Speaker 10:So that's the 70,000 that you've got in here.
Speaker 3:We need to get this claim back. I agree, I'm assuming that the 70 is the Civic Center because it's under your line, but you're saying that's what we're saying is the money that's been going to him is coming out of his.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's get this cleaned up. Well, but that's Understand. We've been kind of cobbling. Costi's mentioned the legislation a couple times. We've been trying to cobble something together. It's not easy because they're a money loser. We've been trying to cobble something together. It's not easy because they're a money loser. No offense, kenny, it's not meant to make. It wasn't built to make money. They're losers, they're a money loser. So we're trying to figure out ways to shift from a facility that can't cover its own costs to help cover CBBs without getting lots of new revenue. So it's been a struggle to get to where we're at, but they're losing a lot of money.
Speaker 8:I mean, we haven't addressed it and these are things that we told them two years ago that we haven't fixed Now.
Speaker 5:I'm saying two years ago, that was before me.
Speaker 8:What exactly does? That mean Well that we were going to phase in some of these things. Oh, we did. That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:So, we've done that because that money is now going to them, plus free rent at the depot and what was at the Civic Center. So we're trying to be good partners but again we're limited because the Civic Center only brings in so much and we have to augment that to run it with the occupancy tax. I mean, we're trying to be good partners. I hope that Cindy would agree with that.
Speaker 10:Well. I say it almost every day. What's that I said? I say it almost every day.
Speaker 9:I said it a lot of times.
Speaker 3:So of the 106, you're saying that 70,000 CDB, correct?
Speaker 7:And how's that reflected up there, Cindy?
Speaker 1:It's not in our budget.
Speaker 9:It's in the top line on the separate line item.
Speaker 1:It's not in that. That's new money on top of all that.
Speaker 9:Okay, yeah so Kenny would show advertising as an expense is fine, while Cindy would show that $70,000 revenue and that $70,000 is being used purely to promote the Civic Center, to bring groups here. So all we're doing is doing the marketing for them, because it wasn't being done previously.
Speaker 8:Which explains why they're losing money, which we've got gotta fix that too, Because I mean, I understand losing money.
Speaker 1:It's going to lose money, but it could lose less. And it's gonna lose less, but still it's more complicated because it's not an unlimited and that was the only point I was trying to make. There's nothing left over when we fund all the things that we have to do, which is support the Civic Center, support the CVB. There's one other little thing. That was 26,000. I forgot what that is. It's all gone.
Speaker 8:And I understand that. But when we're losing, the amount that we're losing it's substantial. It's three quarters of a million dollars and it's not but it's. We're not to wake up one day and that's only going to be two hundred thousand dollars. But when we have people that are working and they've proven that they can build a civic center and we can put people in it and we can make money, we've got to encourage that.
Speaker 1:We can't, we're not discouraging that.
Speaker 8:But but there's the civic center, it's, we're not discour hurting it, but we're not fixing it either, and it's okay, I don't disagree well, we've known about it a long time and nothing.
Speaker 1:I mean, I agree, nothing. Some things can't be done, but I think we're pretty much full on the weekends, which are the primary times to make money. So you can. So you can. We couldn't have anybody better than Cindy. Cindy can work as hard as she can to fill the Civic Center and it will only make a certain amount of difference because the premier times are already booked and the only way to change that is to make the premier times considerably more expensive. I mean, the combination would be to make those considerably more expensive than they are now.
Speaker 8:And the weekly rates Utilization is up. Why can't we be up?
Speaker 2:We have been going up and we have a fee increase in this budget as well, so we've been going up. We've gone up what? Four times, kenny.
Speaker 8:And so again, but it still doesn't fix the issue. That's at the bottom of it. It's sucking up a lot of money and then, when we have these things that we want to do and we need to be able to do, we can't do them because we're spending $700,000 on something that's not working. And I love the Civic Center. I mean, I use it all the time and that's a ridiculous number to me in any business and I'm sorry so how can we work to get it under at least?
Speaker 8:$300,000? You're talking about the umbrella. Yeah because to me it's like we've got two separate entities, Right?
Speaker 1:so you've got two separate entities. That is not going to get resolved today, but let me assure you that's been talked about for a couple years and it's just. I mean, if you know how to snap your fingers and get it done, we're listening, but it's not going to happen today. It is in process and we're trying to make it happen, but and it's certainly better than it was two years ago but it's not as much as we'd like. But don't, don't get this notion that we're gonna walk in one day in the next year, two years, five years, ten years and we're gonna say you know, the Civic Center took in as much as it's been. It's just this. I mean, as much as we'd like that to happen, it's not going to happen. And if it were going to happen or could happen, then somebody else would come to us and say you know, I'd like to buy your Civic Center for fair market value because I think I can make a profit.
Speaker 8:Well, like you said, nobody puts a Civic Center up and expects it to be a profitable thing. That's never been the case.
Speaker 1:And Jap and I were here when we built it and I think I would say that it has served the purposes that I would like. Kim, you and I've been to events this weekend that are exactly Cindy, the one we went to this week. It's a local person who's responsible for hosting a big event doesn't have a venue like that. It could have 350 people there on. Was it Thursday night or Friday night? Beautiful event, fantastic event, but still, I mean they're not and that's what we want. We want our people to use it for their events and we're going to do that and we're going to continue to do that and we're going to try to do it as successfully. I mean, I'm with you all 100%. So what is it? We need to do that and we're going to continue to do that and we're going to try to do it successfully. I mean, I'm with you all 100%.
Speaker 8:So what is it we need to do today? Can I float something?
Speaker 1:Yes, sir.
Speaker 2:So we're trying to take money from a fund, an enterprise fund, that can't provide enough revenue to cover itself, which is absolutely what we shouldn't be doing.
Speaker 2:What and this is the, this is the what if?
Speaker 2:Would you consider the 70 000 coming from the general fund, with the thought being that that is a recreation, is specific center is now part of recreation and that maybe through that, that that might be an option that is a more sustainable option because the general fund could, I mean it's. We would have to find that money. I mean, at this point, finding anything is tight, but you can potentially fund the 70 000 because it would be a year over year, from fund balance or from general fund. And if you chose to take the rest of it from civic center fund balance, if that's what you choose, because it would be year over year from general fund, and if you chose to take the rest of it from civic center fund balance, if that's what you choose to do, or part of it or whatever that is, to me that's a little more sustainable. If that's the route we want to go to help support the civic center, we're muddy in the water because we're going from an enterprise that generally has supported the CBB and vice versa to general fund.
Speaker 2:It's just a question.
Speaker 8:Taking $180,000 out of $2.2 million is not going to break the bank.
Speaker 2:But you got to take $70,000 out next year.
Speaker 8:And they're going to make that. They've proven that that year over year is incremental.
Speaker 3:Taking that money out. Will that be your revenue stream? Replace it.
Speaker 11:Replace it, so no later than well over the trial, when this budget was put together and Sandy did the work and Ron you, your staff was put together and Cindy did the work and Ron you, your staff none of these options come up. None of these. The concerns at this table now did not come up when she was working diligently to bring us a budget that would keep the Civic Center afloat. We know Civic Center's not going to make money like what we think it's going to make because it's not designed for that. We understand that let's it's going to make because it's not designed for that. We understand that. Let's get that straight. So, since it's not designed for that, it's designed for it to be a place where people can go and have something to balance out, some recreation. And if you're going to change that whole atmosphere, then we talk about another way of funding it and raises and things like that, but to keep it as we want it to be, for the citizens to have a place to go.
Speaker 11:Then what are we? We all, everybody's saying something, this part here, this part there. How are we going to put this part together? And then come back with the concerns that we have? Because, right, kim has a point. These have a point with the money. You said where's the money coming from? We need to find that fact first. What would be the best place? If we're going to say general fund, then it would be general fund. If we're not going to take it from the other fund balance, then let's not do that. But going from here to here, switching back and forth, we're just going back and forth from something that we don't even go back and forth on.
Speaker 3:I'm going to throw this out and I'll dive under the table.
Speaker 11:If I have to Quid, no Right now you're shouting Before time?
Speaker 6:What if we agreed to go back?
Speaker 3:on the baseline budget and find the same thing. You found $70,000. You can scrub out this page, civic Center or General General. I don't think you're going to get there any other way that we fund the $70,000 I don't know. We'll make a commitment over the next couple of years to try to come up with the rest that they're willing to match out of their fund balance until we can get the break even for them.
Speaker 2:So 110 would come out of their 400? Or would we increase?
Speaker 3:it the first year 110 would come out of there 400, and or would we? Are you saying the first year 110 would come out of there 400? Then we would. We would increase that incrementally. And I mean I'm I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm not real crazy about the inflationary items. I don't have a line item in my budget says inflationary I'm just gonna go up.
Speaker 1:I just got to suck it up, but you said, find it in the general fund budget. It's up to 70,000.
Speaker 3:So I understand what you're saying. You're saying we fund out of the general fund the 70,000, and then the CBB is going to eat the other $110,000 out of their fund. Is that what you're saying? The first year and then we would increase in income annually over the next two to three years to make them whole. After that going after us? And I think maybe to Kim and Lisa's point. I want to make sure I can articulate what they're saying. Are y'all saying long term is to bring the CBB into the civic fund? I thought that was the idea. Say that again.
Speaker 1:It sounded like that. What did you say, David?
Speaker 3:For y'all's idea was to bring the CBB into the civic Well, that Long term, because, if not, we're going to talk about this. We've been talking about this before, no.
Speaker 6:I mean, it's just such a.
Speaker 1:I mean, I guess explain to us why does it have to be separate?
Speaker 8:Well, we. Huh, what did you say, sandy? Okay, let me ask Cindy, is there a problem with you being a part of the Civic Center? As far as legislature, no, okay, there are tourism destination authorities that are inside municipal government.
Speaker 9:You cannot without having a TDA you cannot collect, you cannot get Okay thank you. You can't close the TDA, but there are other municipalities that are operating with the TDA under the city department. Okay, thank you, but not in with the Civic Center necessarily. I think it's two different jobs.
Speaker 8:Okay, I just wanted to see what you thought about it. I mean, we don't want to overstep you. We've been working to that end for some time. Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 8:Well, I'm not trying to be smart I just want to know. No, no, no.
Speaker 1:There's nothing on you, okay. Part of it hinges on Kenny's retirement. We want to wish him well in December, but we're not trying to run him off tomorrow morning.
Speaker 8:I thought, he was like. Y'all said it one more time I'm going to get up here.
Speaker 1:And so, quite honestly, quite honestly, the model that Cindy has I mean the job that she's done has shown us that there is a way that the city and the CBP.
Speaker 1:I mean, we haven't tried to not work together, but it's at a different level than it's been in the past and it's been constructive and instructive on how we should go forward. So much so that when the executive director of the DSDC resigned or retired or whatever we said, maybe that's another one that can come under our umbrella as well. But you don't just snap your fingers and say we're taking you all in we don't need your boards anymore. The boards are going to be constructed this way, and so it's not as if there's anything.
Speaker 1:Cindy's role with the CBB has made us more cognizant of the fact that it is possible to work together even more harmoniously than we have in the past, so that's a good thing.
Speaker 8:And the only thing that I think is in question here today is we know it works, we know that they're bringing in money.
Speaker 1:They're not bringing in this much money.
Speaker 8:They're not bringing in $180,000?. Correct A year. Correct the CBV.
Speaker 1:That they're part of it Is that correct.
Speaker 11:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 8:We're not bringing in $180,000. There's just not a rich uncle in the family.
Speaker 3:Wait a minute. Say it again, sandy, wait a minute.
Speaker 11:She's saying something. Let's hear what she had to say. Now, what did you say? What are we bringing in? What are you all bringing in?
Speaker 1:Are you saying?
Speaker 8:the hoteliers are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's not a problem. They don't control the occupancy tax. It doesn't cost them a penny to bring it in, but she contributes to it. No, I'm not a problem, they don't control the occupancy tax. It doesn't cost them a penny to bring it in. But she contributes to it. No, I'm not saying that it's the same way like the sales tax. The guy that operates Steve Johnson doesn't come in and say I'm generating $80,000 worth of sales tax or whatever it is in a year. I want $80,000 worth of something for me.
Speaker 8:That's not what they're asking for. They're just asking for a portion of it to be able to self-sustain, because if she leaves, they're not self-sustaining.
Speaker 1:I'm appearing that I'm on the opposite side. I am more on the side of helping them than anybody in this room. That's why I'd like for us to just figure out. I don't mind what Steve's saying. I think the destination manager is the most important thing that we can help them with right now.
Speaker 1:And if we can find a way to help them with that, but not necessarily discard the rest of it immediately, but just say I think I go back to what I said about 20 minutes ago we were not prepared to have this discussion today. In my opinion, if we can get through it, then I'm fine with that. But we don't make good decisions when I've got an idea and you've got an idea, and Cindy's got an idea and Tim's got an idea. We need it all on one piece of paper so we can understand the history of what we're doing.
Speaker 11:The guidelines. If we're going to take the $70,000 that we just said out of the general fund, if that's what we're going to do, then let's do it. You know, let's do it and then leave the other part to whatever need to be done in the future. Let's say this is what we plan on doing, this is what council has agreed with, and then take it from there.
Speaker 1:But going back and forth back, to the four fields, if that's what Steve said yeah, I.
Speaker 11:I mean regardless of who he said Make a motion of some kind. I'll make a motion that we take the 70.
Speaker 1:Out of the general fund. Out of the general fund To help to pay for a destination experience manager for the CVV.
Speaker 3:And if they want to go ahead and ramp up to do the rest of it immediately, they can take it out of their fund balance for the commitment. For us we'll try to ramp up over two or three years to help resolve something. I think in that motion I would agree with that and I agree with the 70 000 coming out of the general fund for for a year. But I believe that we need to have a strategy that moves us forward, that addresses this issue, because I mean, I think we've talked about this I know I can only say for the last five budget cycles.
Speaker 10:Well.
Speaker 1:I'm beating up on the staff a little bit and I don't mean to do that. Well, I do mean a little bit, but in their defense there is a strategy. They've been working on the staff a little bit. I don't mean to do that. Well, I do mean a little bit, but. But but in their defense they there is a strategy. They've been working on the strategy they have. Richard Ron has put the Civic Center under the rec department as part of that strategy and there'll be some. There'll be some restructuring or reconfiguring or resumption at some point.
Speaker 1:And I mean again, like I say in fairness, we're trying to plan with Kenny and not around Kenny. And I would say that's a. I mean, if you're saying what's the impediment to getting this done, it's nothing more than we're. You know he announced some time ago when he was going to retire. We have no reason to, you know, not appreciate him for his service and respect his decision. But we don't want to give the impression that we're, like I said, saying if you leave tomorrow it would be a better deal for us. So I mean, isn't that fair? That's part of the strategy too. So we're not. I mean, I'm glad that everybody here I hope this is uplifting to Cindy even though she's not getting $180,000 that she has a council that appreciates what she's done and how she's handled the CVB in a way that, in my opinion, has never in its history been at this level, so so at the next retreat.
Speaker 8:Can we ask staff to kind of?
Speaker 1:that'll be a good time to talk.
Speaker 8:Yeah, yeah, let's bring this back to the table.
Speaker 3:We got all have some time that increase in the baseline, all right they want to be that quick.
Speaker 1:Everybody understands that part.
Speaker 8:Okay, yeah, and I'll second.
Speaker 10:Did you finish your motion? Doris made the motion. No, she made it.
Speaker 11:He just interrupted me, that's all.
Speaker 3:I was articulating, he was explaining let's get it over with All right.
Speaker 8:interrupted me to sound. I was articulating okay, good motion.
Speaker 1:Motion to give the CVB $70,000 out of the operating budget to fund a destination experience manager for the next budget year and I think the additional. Are you okay with saying that we'll find $70,000 that we can eliminate from the general fund?
Speaker 11:Also, I'd like to put in what Lisa said that we addressed at the retreat Fall retreat.
Speaker 1:Okay, you're alright with that, kim. Okay, any discussion. We've discussed it pretty good. I hope the discussion has been helpful. Alright, all in favor. Please say aye Aye. Okay, any discussion. We've discussed it pretty good. I hope the discussion has been helpful. All right, all in favor. Please say aye Aye, any opposed. And that was the easy one. Okay, so now.
Speaker 2:Well, you said it was going to be easy. Somebody better order some food. I thought it was going to be easier than that. Okay, all right.
Speaker 1:The next big one is the building standards thing, because I know there's some difference of opinion as to what to do. So can you revisit that and let us yes, and Scott's got a detailed breakdown.
Speaker 2:But essentially at the retreat the request was brought forth and we talked about putting basically shifting building inspections from Iredell County to the city of Statesville. That would include everything from plans review, to the inspectors, to you know all the staff and I think on the top end we were looking at, I think, 10 staff people. First year probably six, but ultimately in that range so, so, but.
Speaker 2:But it was meant to build into it incrementally and give it what would effectively be a year and a few months to hire, hire the main person to organize it, get everything bought up, go through all of the approval processes, give the county a year's notice and then it would be up and operational in September of 2025. We've included $765,000, roughly in there. Is that right? Yes, that's right. In the budget for this coming year. We have pulled it out of fund balance. Uh, to do it?
Speaker 2:probably not the most optimum way to do it but, eventually, what we expect is that if, once it starts generating money, it will help to replenish back to the, to the, to the fund balance. So I can't guarantee that, but that's based on the model that I owe County and Morrisville has so you have that in the budget, and what you would ask us to do was put it in there, with the final decision being through what you're going to do.
Speaker 2:Well, if it doesn't, then we just won't. You know, we will have taken that 765 out without putting it back in, and that's just you know, and it also was, it was in this year's budget. It was a little tighter than we thought it was going to be, so, um, you know, that was also a place that we could take it, we can get it fully funded.
Speaker 6:To be back to the city, what is the annual budget estimated to be?
Speaker 2:The annualized budget. What's this up and running?
Speaker 10:Before we run there was, I think it's a 1.4 million. So again this the 1.4 million, Again the 1.4 million, and that's driven by roads and workloads. So within that 1.5 million range, and that's what we're estimating.
Speaker 2:It's hard to know for sure. Can you say that again?
Speaker 6:It's hard to know for sure, there's just no way that I'm, because we paid the county $200,000 to take it. Give them all of our vehicles and equipment, give them all over here, give my furniture, everything to take it because we couldn't make ends meet. And now we're going to take it back and we're going to come back with just like we did, but the little vehicle for the lease vehicle. We're gonna make another mistake.
Speaker 3:What's the limitation for it? What's broken? What road is it on? Do I need to reinvest the?
Speaker 2:wheat. Well, it was a council. It was a council, ask we, we, it wasn't a staff ask what did council ask Hang?
Speaker 3:on. I'm through what with all the other commitments that we had, and we got the police station that we've got to find, we've got the garage and the warehouse. What third, fourth, and those that we've got to find. That's a good job. And I'll still say this. I still say this In return. In regard to residential growth and I'm going to include myself in this number we have no idea what's coming our way and really no idea how we're going to technically deal with it. Our league is pretty full of folks. I differ with my friend Jeff here a little bit. Really no idea how we're going to technically deal with it. I believe it's pretty cool. Now, I differ with my friend jeff here a little bit of fire station five. I'm not sure we're gonna need fire station five as soon as some people say. I think we're gonna need it sooner than the lady jeff thinks we're gonna need, so that that's another thing.
Speaker 3:If we had 800,000, they won't build a fire station, they won't build a garage or a warehouse. We live short, over a couple or three years, short of using the amount of your debt service and saving you some money down the road. Why don't we focus on the things that we're already committed to and let's accomplish them? And the third thing is how much more load are we gonna put on our folks? I feel sorry for Sherry Ashley and her staff. They're being hammered. It's gonna get worse. How are we gonna attend to all that do a good job on those things if we're in the process of that? We're expanding the role of government, we're creating a whole new department trying to get it up and running. How are we going to handle all that? I'd like to counter those points. Well, please, do'm gonna count them All right.
Speaker 3:So to the counterpoint that JAB was making about 50 years of growth in Statesville. Yes, it probably was the right decision to move the inspection department to the county, but the growth is not the same. You look at 50 years of growth at 3% over 50 years. You look at 50 years of growth at 3% over 50 years. Well, last year our growth was 1.8, almost 1.9. It was higher than Charlotte's. So if the thought process is that we're going to grow which, if you look at the last two years worth of minutes, we got growth If you look at the model that Moris did, that's a profit center.
Speaker 3:So we're not talking about losing money by doing an inspection department. We're probably talking about putting money back into the general fund specifically from inspections. That is tied to growth. So why would we not do that for fiscal responsibility? Why would we not want that For fiscal responsibility? Why would we not want to add more money to the general fund? We don't know that we will be adding money back. If we just look at the model that Morseville has, I'm not going to say the growth's going to be the same, but we already see that we've got good growth coming. Why would we not want to do that?
Speaker 6:But to start with, it just don't even seem fair that the county took it and negotiated it at $200,000.
Speaker 3:And I think now we could make a few dollars. I don't disagree. I agree that that decision back then was right. I don't disagree with that. That thought process was right because the growth in Statesville for 50 years was nothing. Now you look at the last two or three years, we have significant growth. Why would we not want to capitalize on that?
Speaker 11:That's my point, and the growth is going to continue. And when we say something about, I say we don't need a fire station, people say we need a fire station one. But when you talk to the people that actually the firefighters, the fire station, the fire chief I want to hear what they have to say, because they're the ones that make these decisions. They're the ones that know what. They out there every day working and figuring out what is safe for our community. We building houses are coming from all over the city. So what are we going to do then? So we can't just take like I'm going to take this off the ballot because X amount of dollars, because we're going to be stuck again. We may not be around this table, but somebody else is going to be around this table. And we was horse and buggies, but now we drive T-model Fords.
Speaker 11:So what happened back then and the relationship that we had with people back then is one thing, but what we have now is what we have to deal with and I want to hear what we're going to do now. And we had all those things and we had everything done. We had everything planned. You want to go back and talk about it? Well, what about the plan that we had down on Amity Hill when we could have had these things and then we could have moved forward? We make decisions every day, but when we make the decision, we got to look back at the things that we say didn't work. And they have worked and this council body has done a doggone good job and moving and staff to move us forward with the population after 50 years.
Speaker 11:So what I'm saying is this right here, we deal with the reality of what we have to deal with. We're gonna deal with our future and we're gonna do all what we have to deal with. We're going to deal with our future and we're going to do all that we can to be prepared for the impossible, because ain't nobody in here is a genie or can be able to articulate what's going to happen in the future. We never thought we'd be right here, but look what we did. We don't wait what? Two years without even raising taxes. That's some credibility on somebody. We made some solid decisions. Staff worked hard.
Speaker 11:So all I'm saying and mind you, there ain't no speech, there ain't nothing but reality on the table we're gonna need a five station fire, we're gonna need it. How we get it what we're gonna do. We cannot take it off the table and say that's not an important factor, so everything else that we're gonna talk about. We cannot take it off the table and say that it's not an important factor, so everything else that we're going to talk about. You know I'm tired. Now I'm going to let it go.
Speaker 8:I have two points. One I agree with David that we didn't have any growth, so there was no reason for us to keep something that was losing money. But it's a basic business decision that now we have growth, and why would we not take it back? Because it's obviously making money. We saw all those numbers at the retreat. That's what we're talking about again. And then on the other side of that, you know, when we're talking about the fire department, we talked about that too at the retreat, so we knew that the fire department was a little bit down the road, which is not on our priority list anymore. And then I'm going gonna throw in a ranch, because we did talk about our pool and our recreation facilities that we have not talked about, and some of those have been moved out and I think we need to put them back in because that's what our community asked for. So, yeah, I think that's a good deal, but I think we've got other things that we need to consider too.
Speaker 3:I didn't mean for the discussion to focus on the fire department. No, it wasn't, and I think we're going to have enough hard time with planning and zoning, much less trying to develop a building inspection for the middle of all that planning, can I?
Speaker 1:somewhat agree with that too. Okay, the issue that's on the table right now is whether we want to get back in the building standards business, and the money is something less than $800,000, which will come out of the fund balance for that purpose and over the course of 12 months we'll ramp up and I think it was 12 to 15 employees or something, and the projection is that in year two, 12 to 15 employees or something and the projection is that in year two, it it could, based on the growth that we're seeing now become profitable and continue that way?
Speaker 1:again, no guarantees are. Is there? Is there a motion one way or the other about them, about whether you want to leave it like that and move forward?
Speaker 8:Are we talking about bringing the?
Speaker 3:inspection back. Oh, that's right. Okay, that's right, okay, that's right.
Speaker 8:It's in the budget when we get to the final budget we'll take it.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's right. I appreciate it. I'd say, I mean well the only's needed is if you want to take it out.
Speaker 3:Well, I'll make the motion. We exclude it from the motion.
Speaker 6:Okay all right Is there a?
Speaker 1:second, second, second to that motion Okay, is there anyone else that would? I mean we've had discussion. Would anyone else like to discuss that motion? Well, those in favor of the motion which is to take the building standards department out of the budget, please raise your hand. Those opposed Okay, so we will leave the building standards in. I had those exactly backwards. I thought that would take an hour and a half at the Civic Center. I mean, you thought the same thing. Right, you thought it would be, or you anyway. Anyway, you thought that take a lot of time. Okay, all right. And I think the third don't you think we should talk about the water and sewer rates?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's definitely what I'm talking about. I've gotten at least one. You don't get a lot of calls. I don't get a lot of calls on budgets.
Speaker 1:The only comment.
Speaker 8:I've gotten so far is on water sewer rates.
Speaker 1:Me too. So I mean can you tell them what you told me while we got going and tell?
Speaker 2:them. What's the value? Yeah, Good. So if you look at your, look at page seven, if you can or I'll just read them out.
Speaker 2:It's in the budget message, so I'll take you back. For those of you that were here when Chris Tucker was the finance director, chris had done a water sewer rate study and in that water sewer rate study, water sewer rate study, and in that water sewer rate study, the first year showed that we needed to raise rates 20%. You all remember that big rates because we, and when you, when we did comparisons of it and looked at it, we were woefully behind where we should be. So so so in that first year we had a 20% increase and that was a huge increase. But there were scheduled 5% increases along the way, which is pretty standard because, you know, as costs go up, you have to.
Speaker 2:I mean water and sewer is a business you have to adjust your rates to cover it. We have seen increases in the fund because of growth. But if you look at page seven at the top, these are some of the big projects that we are looking at in water and sewer Fourth Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, equalization Basin, Interstate Lift Station, basin Aerators, an elevated water tank, generators. These are all major expenditures. The elevated water tank alone was over $6 million.
Speaker 2:So because of growth, but, also for the strength and the health of our systems. We have to make these improvements over time. What this is doing? In conjunction with that $3 million South Yadkin water fix that was just approved, it's causing us to pull from our fund balance, which we use for capital projects. It's getting it down to a point where I'm personally not comfortable with going that low.
Speaker 2:So the only way that you can get new revenues in your water sewer fund is to raise those rates. So what we're proposing or what I guess I'm proposing is that we go the 5% and because of that $3 million that was unexpected going from the 5% and because of that $3 million that was unexpected going from the 5% that was programmed, moving it to 7% to help us cover that and make sure that we keep the fund healthy and move forward, y'all when we get to the point you all heard the other day at the growth meeting, forth Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant is not at a level that we need to start worrying about it, but we're about a step or two away from that and we need to start programming and planning for that expansion because that could be $100 million. That money comes from the water sewer plant. So this is one preliminary step of getting us toward investing in our capital.
Speaker 3:Well now, when those water rates were done forward and we had that increase, we were right about the median of the whole fact. We were just about to smack down in the middle on the rates. About as many people were higher than us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, after the anchors.
Speaker 3:And that was also a conversation before we had the $20 million.
Speaker 2:Well, keep in mind that $20 million it was money in, money out, so it was it was covered. It was, it was covering the huge project that we had identified. We were fortunate to get that to cover how much that 20 million do we have?
Speaker 11:is it all gone?
Speaker 2:well it's. We don't have it in hand.
Speaker 11:The grant is allocated we know what we are spending it on.
Speaker 2:Okay, you already know what's going to be, so being such a large project we've been working on for how long a year and a half to get to the point where we can spend so it building?
Speaker 1:you confirm that? I mean, we're the contract prices within that, but we're within that budget. So we're not going to have it, we're going to be okay.
Speaker 7:The cost that the A&E has given us is within that budget, but who knows what happens when we go to bid in the next two months? That's why we said the OPC was around 19.2,. But we went back to the state and said let's keep the whole $20 million because we might need that elbow room. So we're on line for the $ million dollar grant so, ron?
Speaker 3:well, if we do this increase, where does that put us with our surrounding communities? On?
Speaker 7:average, I would have to pull up.
Speaker 2:There's a dashboard. We can probably pull that up now.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, we're talking, I'll have some Also, just sidebar. Where do we need an elevated storage tank? Where's the next?
Speaker 7:unit. Y'all remember the big fire down there in Ebony Hill in 21?.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 7:You remember what happened when the fire trucks hooked on and all the lines got sucked off and the spaghetti down there at that intersection, the whole southwest, southwest side of town. If you look at our haze in 2019 model and water structure thing, the fire hydrants are all down there. We can't make the drive flow on the hydrants.
Speaker 7:So with all the development coming around Wallace Springs Road, area road coming online. We've got giant Oaks one and two. It looks like the best place for fire towers probably be somewhere in the vicinity of Old Airport and Buffalo Shoals. Right now the modeling is being done through the Timmons contract that you all awarded and Hayden is doing that with them in conjunction. They're going to figure out if we can get by without the water tower for a while, if the lines that we're going to put in on the Airy Road loop, which will become the Elm Approval soon, will give us enough temporary supply down there for the next year or two. But it may show that when the other growth comes that we need that elevated tower, not necessarily the pressure but for volume to be able to get to the fire.
Speaker 2:So we're waiting to see what comes.
Speaker 7:So that's why we mumped that out a little bit by putting the waterline loop in and then, when we need it in a couple years or three, go for the tower okay thank you yeah, that idea one one day. I knew we were going to be out that way we're going to help us with the water needs in the southwest section of the city. No sir, I'm not a fire department, but I'll give them the water they need, if I can.
Speaker 1:Okay, I want to say to you One second, kim, I want to say to you One second.
Speaker 3:Kevin, sarah, uh-huh. If we're going to have adequate fire protection for that, we're going to have to do something. We're not going to have water. How much does those towers typically run? Six million is what they're budgeting.
Speaker 7:If you go out and do an online check of the estimates we're looking at in the $6 million range for an elevated steel water tower. They're expensive, so that's why we're kind of looking at possibly phasing the project to get the 12-inch distribution line in and when we really push from the shove a couple, three years out and go for the tower as part of the overall plan, programmatically.
Speaker 2:And he's right.
Speaker 7:As the airport develops too we've got to get water out there. It's going to be a volume, it's not necessarily pressure.
Speaker 3:Maybe it's just when the fire happens. You can't get enough to it in time.
Speaker 6:So within the four years you look to add a tower. Is that six million today dollars? Yes, three years, maybe nine. It could mean, we don't know, that's another decision point.
Speaker 7:If you want to bet, yeah, if you want to take a chance to say you know, we know the price is going to go up to three million in three years. Benefit cost analysis of money might say do it now.
Speaker 8:I guess I just want to say right now that when you start talking about any increase, guys and devil's after we have talked about we're going to do this growth, we're going to build these houses, we're going to do these things, we're going to grow. We're going to grow the airport. Now we're coming back to the citizens of our current city of Statesville and saying we want to increase your water and sewer rates, when we have repeatedly told them that we have water and sewer.
Speaker 1:We haven't told them we wouldn't raise the rates. We actually told them we'd raise it 20% a year, and we didn't do that.
Speaker 2:What you have to remember is that these enterprise funds are run like a business. People complain about government not running like government. Like a business the general fund is not, it can't be, but on these others it really is, and the only way of generating revenue is to increase is through those rates and some other system development fees and things like that. But to cover these big expenditures you've got to figure out how to fund them.
Speaker 8:And so do we if we quit growing. What's that? If we quit growing as fast as we are, do the expenditures come as fast? I think?
Speaker 6:I would say most of you.
Speaker 3:I mean I'm the same, so Kim when we had this conversation conversation back to what Steve was talking about when we had a three or four years ago we were budgeting and we were talking about a water increase, a significant water increase and that was because we were having to replace some existing lines and some existing sewer lines. Had we not gotten that twenty million dollars, we'd be hurt.
Speaker 8:I agree with that I understand that.
Speaker 3:We'd be hurt had we not gotten that twenty million dollars. However, I do believe we're gonna have to have an increase just to build the fund up so we can replace what we already got. Not because of new.
Speaker 11:How much of an increase are we talking about?
Speaker 3:seven percent, you know I'm not judging those in the past, but they were reticent for years and years to ever raise water rates. I mean we had 13 water rates for 20 years did y'all get a?
Speaker 1:did you look at the dashboard on that, or was that it?
Speaker 10:Just so. This is the school of government. There's utilities to break every year. Ms Scott is still out.
Speaker 10:So what we've done is the red dot is states where we fixed states full of water and super bill and compared it to providers within 25 miles. So these dark blue dots, that's who it would be compared to in this current graph, what it does. It takes, just as an example, 5,000 gallon water use a month, what your bill would be. You do that upper amount of water and how that compares to the folks within 25 miles. So within that 25 miles the lowest utility provider for the same water usage would be a $57 bill and the highest would be $160. We're at $78. That's with the 20% increase that went into effect two or three years ago and you can play around with it with different distances or different suggestions. So what Emerson and Allison produced proposed a 7% increase. There you go. This guy sits there, so you can see the dollar doesn't really move that much. This is about $81. So if you do a 7% increase, this is still where we fall compared to other folks.
Speaker 3:That's the same. When they leave their rate's the same, exactly when they leave theirs is the same.
Speaker 10:But if they increase theirs, the dollar will come back right let me ask.
Speaker 3:Can I ask yes, sir, this seven percent raise, given everything you know you got to do wrong, how long does that stick? Any idea?
Speaker 2:I. I would expect we'd be coming back in the next couple, maybe three years, with another five. If we don't do it now. At least 5%, even if it's not seven. But if we don't do it now, we're going to ask next year and the next year. I mean, it's everything else. I'll put it this way too Everything else in the world is going up, and this one is part of that so would you say, if you do the 5% it would be lesser years coming back.
Speaker 11:if we did 5% it would be less of you you saying like two or three years. So if we tell the public that we're gonna do 7%, but it will be that to three years, so we can give them a date on the time that it won't be next year coming back, it'll be an 8%, I don't know that I'd want to give somebody a definite time, because things change you know like, for instance, we did not expect to have to pay this $3 million for the South Yadkin intake.
Speaker 2:We hope to get reimbursed. We're not guaranteed of getting reimbursed. Those things happen and what that does is that means that kills our fund balance, contributes to killing our fund balance in water sewer. If we have one major catastrophe with water and we're down in two, three, four million dollars in that fund balance, that is a bad day for us.
Speaker 11:Well, what about if we do the 5%? If we do the 5%, since we cannot give, we don't know what the future holds. We don't know. I think now the recipient was probably a little bit more receptacle. I mean, if we do seven, they got to deal with the seven, but but if they deal with the five, how would that affect? Would that?
Speaker 5:I'd recommend still going with the seven. Okay, and recently the 17 million. That first line of water and sewer, that's your primary revenue. That's it. The system. Development fees those can fluctuate right, those eventually could go away. It's just sloping down Investment income. The Federal Reserve's it. The system development fees, those can fluctuate right, it could go away. It's sloping down Investment income. The Federal Reserve is overrated. All of a sudden, $610,000 disappears for us. We only make $17 million of revenue every year.
Speaker 4:We know a water tower is going to cost $7 million.
Speaker 5:That's more than half your revenue for one year and right now the business it's not. Our businesses are kind of like break-even businesses. Right now there's not much profitability to be had.
Speaker 11:You said something about the water tower. Are we saying it's going to be something that we're going to have to do in the future, or is it something that we're saying is a possibility that we have to do?
Speaker 11:We're planning on doing it Okay, so that makes sense too. If you're going to raise it, the people need to know why you're raising it. If you're going to do a 7% raise with that, they need to know the reason why we're doing it. We're around this table, you know we get it, but the public needs to know that.
Speaker 5:Yeah, okay, so great get it, but the public needs to know that that. Yeah, okay, so great. Here's a great example fund balance, available fund balance. And the last year in water and sewer round numbers was 18 million. At the end of next year will be about seven, so we're going to go through about 11 million dollars. So we got to ask ourselves seven million dollars in our fund balance by the end of next year, is that adequate when big investments are three, five, seven million dollars? I'd say no. You'll probably need to start shoring that thing up a little more, just to be safe. I mean, the good thing is, if we go a little too high, what?
Speaker 5:does that mean you don't have to do another one for several years. I mean it's just kind of. You guys know the constituents would they rather have 2% every? Year perpetually, or hit me with a 7%, wait three or four years, and then we kind of revisit it.
Speaker 11:I'm just Ron. I'm just saying that we get this information out. The public needs to know why we're doing it. We're around this table and it sounds good. We understand it, but the public needs to understand it as well. That's all I'm saying. I said if you're going to raise it, you're going to give me the reason why you're doing it.
Speaker 2:That's a fair point, and that's something that we can do Once we settle on what this budget's going to look like. We can provide that too. We've actually looked at some places that go way overboard with it, but we can give you talking points.
Speaker 8:That's not a problem, and I guess I go back to the concern that, regardless of how you look at it, people took a big hit with the tax reevaluation last year. Granted, that wasn't our fault, but it is what it is. All I'm saying is we need to get them again.
Speaker 1:Well, it's not good, but I'll tell you what if you're going to have anything raised, if you're gonna have anything raised, you'd rather have your water to raise rather than electric or your that's true percentage on the other ones.
Speaker 1:I mean it's not good either way. The other thing that scares me about this and it's it's totally sort of unrelated, but it's the same fun we don't have. But I think 2.4 million in our system development fees, for I mean, you know, all this money that we're collecting that's going to help us build the new plants in the future. We just have a very Modest amount of that. So when that happens, as we continue to grow and use more water and all that, it's not as if we're going to fund a new expansion of Third or Fourth Creek by the money we have in our system.
Speaker 5:Right, If anything, you'd only be able to fund an annual debt payment.
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 5:But not actually build it with cash.
Speaker 2:We're still paying the debt on Third Creek, I believe. Debt on Third Creek, I believe. And Third Creek you can look at it a lot of different ways but Third Creek has still got a debt payment on it, but it's underutilized. So in my mind, we need more customers using the Third Creek to pay for it. So that's something that we're paying for and it's very much an underutilized system. It's going to be great for the future, for sure, but it is underutilized.
Speaker 8:So again, when we're talking about planning, that's where we need to be pushing people to. When we're talking about these housing developments and those kinds of things, they're coming. I mean I got it.
Speaker 2:But I'm just saying people here, they don't care, all they know is their bills went up, and then we keep saying oh, no the new development is not going to affect you, but it kind of is Well, I would argue that if it's affecting it, it's not causing this type of thing. I mean again, south Yadkin is fresh in my mind. That's a $3 million unexpected capital expenditure.
Speaker 3:It's kind of like compared to all the parts of this. Your fixed costs don't increase every time you get a new customer. They just pretty much stay the same. It's only when you get 100 new customers your fixed operational costs tend to escalate, because then you've got to hire new, you've got to buy new computers Right, but we're getting thousands of new customers.
Speaker 1:But not all ours. A lot of them are not ours.
Speaker 8:No, a lot of them are ours, the ones that we're approving.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying it's going right back to.
Speaker 8:If Iowa Water is doing it, it's not.
Speaker 1:It affects the sewer rate but not the water that can be in the discussion too, but we're not.
Speaker 8:We haven't talked about it. We're every day improving and approving these things.
Speaker 1:And and approving these things, and I'm just saying Well, arguably, if we price things right, we should make a little bit on the spread of every customer that we get. Okay, well, again, I'll ask for a motion that's in the budget at 7%. Again, if you want to leave it at 7%, you don't need to change it, but if you want to modify the 7%, then we would need a motion to modify that in the budget.
Speaker 3:I don't like paying more money than anything.
Speaker 6:You go ahead.
Speaker 3:Well, let's make the motion. How can I say this? On one side of Washington, they're borrowing $3 million every 140 days and the other side they're raising the interest rate to slow inflation. That's the economic environment we're in. Inflation's not going anywhere. Higher interest rates aren't going anywhere, so you better do it. Why is it?
Speaker 1:you Okay, we'll leave that.
Speaker 3:I make a motion.
Speaker 1:I support the budget increase on the water rate, we can do that. But if you say, leave it as it is, we really don't need it, we'll do that when we approve the whole thing. Okay, All right, I think that's the housing fund is in there, right?
Speaker 2:Housing fund is in there, okay.
Speaker 1:Yes, All right Now. What I would say is let's go to the. What questions do any of you all have about the budget Concerns?
Speaker 8:I want to go back to our priority list, that we kind of skimmed over police and then we moved fire station. We talked about our bring-aways and recreations. Well, we did not talk about bring-aways and recreations.
Speaker 2:I think Ron did a little bit of it we have so starting at the top. So the police and the parking deck are programmed into this budget. That was a previously ranked priority. So when we met at the retreat, the next priority, the next highest priority was fire station five, and then there was a jumble after that. The next priority, the next highest priority was fire station five, and then there was a jumble. After that it was pool greenways, the state's housing authority part, so that was all kind of together. But we don't have I mean at this point we can't jump out and build that fire station unless you're which is the number one priority based on the retreat. We can't build that fire station right now until we get through the police department because we've got the warehouse. So we're kind of to our max. I'll put it that way Once we get beyond fire station five, that's when the next priorities would kick in, being a pool hole and any other big things.
Speaker 2:There is greenway money in to connect under 21, which will actually link our. What is it, sherry? Six miles now, so six. We'll have a continuous six mile stretch of greenways from one side of town to the other, and that's over $300,000 that's in there for Greenway improvement. There's also other money that goes into recreation that's used for Greenway upgrades and maintenance, things like that and opportunities, opportunities to go out in Spain.
Speaker 1:What am I missing from that? Well, it seems to me, kim. Obviously we can't do everything at one time. The only thing that we could do differently in my mind is you could raise money to fund a reserve, so that we're not talking about $5 million to do this all at one time. Agreed, not talking about five million dollars to do this all at one time. But if you do that, then somebody's got a fund that and it's one penny on the tax rate for every five hundred and two thousand dollars that we raise.
Speaker 11:So what is the status on the police?
Speaker 2:department. It's in the planning stages and demolition is going to happen for two of the buildings imminently. Yeah, soon, Sorry, I meant and so we're. The planning stages are there. They're actually going to DRC, the Design Review Committee, soon.
Speaker 6:Have we hooked from the table of water for the parking deck yet the water you know? We haven't studied it.
Speaker 2:Oh um Boring's. On the Paris site we even had Paris, I think. Paris, Paris. Yes, Ed, you can Paris Paris. Is it in Paris? Yes, it is in the department. Yeah, just only at the police department, part of it.
Speaker 6:That's not for the department yet. No, because there'd be much. Yeah, and that's that's on the Delco folks.
Speaker 2:So that's gonna be on there's. Am I right on that?
Speaker 6:What about the study for Sullivan Road near the lake Study there you go across to Brookdale, right? What were we doing? We were having a study there. Oh for the dam. Yeah, sherry, you want to come up? We're having a study to. Oh for the dam.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sherry, you want to come up.
Speaker 9:I may need some assistance from Scott. We have Jerry Meade working on that contract to see if we can get that dam improved.
Speaker 3:It's proven to be a daunting task.
Speaker 2:We don't have a resolution yet. Jeff the dam. They told us we were good on that dam a couple years ago and then they decided they were wrong. It's kind of like leased vehicles and now we had to go through another review process.
Speaker 6:I believe it was $70,000 or something like that.
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't remember how much the study was, but the improvement's going to be a lot, a lot.
Speaker 6:It may even kill it.
Speaker 2:It's possible.
Speaker 6:It might be more of the power.
Speaker 11:Excuse me, but are we still moving forward? Are we through?
Speaker 2:Well, you asked about the police department.
Speaker 11:I did, I did, so that's in the process.
Speaker 2:Okay, on the police department I did so that's in the process. On the fire department, we are still looking for property. We kind of have held, based on the budget, when we wanted to get through this and I said this earlier and I know that this is not going to be a popular statement when it comes to building that fire department, I mean, I think we're going to be. Unless we get serious good revenue, we're going to either I'm going to probably be coming to you with a recommended tax increase to fund the station, the apparatus, because you gotta remember it's a three-pronged process and that's gonna be, if you move forward with it, that's gonna hurt because you're gonna, at the end of the day, you're carrying, glenn, what? Million million and a half Million and a half. The first of the house Apparatus is probably two million. That'll purchase it in about three years. So you've got heavy carrying costs. So that being your first priority, that's a big one. That's a heavy lift for us and we certainly couldn't do it in this year's budget.
Speaker 8:I had a quick question about the police. There were like nine new vehicles in there. Police yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have a nine vehicle replacement um uh schedule. So we've been doing that for what? Six, seven years now that I'll move over to that, yeah it could be, but that was just something that was put in place some years back to keep the fleet rolling. That's the number that was changed. It has not grown as the force has grown.
Speaker 11:We said nine. How many have we completed in that we?
Speaker 1:got all nine of them, nine every year.
Speaker 11:Nine every year. Yes, ma'am, oh, okay. That's what's budgeted.
Speaker 3:Budgeted okay, these are good questions. Every man, every year. Okay, that's what's budget.
Speaker 1:But that's right, that's one tenth of our fleet. Every year I might want.
Speaker 3:Evan, okay, going through the budget, I mean I've got one thing. We've been back and forth on this.
Speaker 10:With the credit card charges that we're absorbing this year are expected to be $600,000.
Speaker 1:And that's a lot, that's 1.2 cents on the tax rate and I must be patronizing the wrong places because everywhere I go, you pay more than $600,000. And I'm be patronizing the wrong places because everywhere I go, you pay more to use your credit card than if you pay cash and I just don't know what's wrong with. I don't, I mean, unless it's more cumbersome than the amount that we're charging. That just seems like a lot of money that we're eating.
Speaker 8:It is.
Speaker 1:And that number keeps going up and up. I guess the other thing is, more and more places decline to take cash because I guess there's the theft risk and all that kind of stuff. But I mean, even if you go online and make a gift to a charity, they say do you want to gross it up by 4% to cover the credit card charge? So I just don't understand what the heresy is to charge the users of their credit cards to use them. And if you use cash or if you write a check, then you don't pay it, but if you use credit card, then online. I mean that's all I'm saying that that's a lot of money. I mean that's you know. You start talking about what could you do with another six hundred thousand bucks or part of that, it just seems. It seems like something to consider well and we get, we're getting it back working, but it's we're not getting.
Speaker 1:I mean, we're we're getting it back, but we're're getting it back, but we're getting it back from an enterprise fund. So what Ron just shared with us is that the enterprise funds have to make it on their own. It's harder for them to make it on their own because the electric department and the water department are all having to reimburse. The general fund are being impacted in the way that. Maybe, doris, it would have allowed us to have only a 5 or 6% in the water, because we would have. We were having to use some of the water to replace the general fund because we had got credit card charges. I don't know.
Speaker 3:Do other municipalities charge a conveniency fee for processing payment of credit cards?
Speaker 1:Are you asking or are you saying yeah, I'm asking, fee for processing payment of credit cards. Are you asking or are you?
Speaker 3:saying yeah, I'm asking Because I know industries do all type of retail industries do.
Speaker 2:I'm sure they do. Trying to think back to when this came up with council, we were trying to compel people to use it and that was at least part of the conversation was to take on those demands. It is higher than we thought it was going to be.
Speaker 8:All we have to do is just add it right.
Speaker 2:Then people will go back to coming in the office $600,000, half a million dollars. Eventually, what you'll see is that number will be offset somewhat not entirely by a new staff as we grow. If you have more people coming in the office to customer service but I mean, I'm not going to that may not be much at all. So what you're?
Speaker 1:saying yeah, because if you go in and pay your bill with a credit card, you don't I mean they can't. They can't, they can only charge it for, like online or whatever. For some reason, People know that. But what? Yeah, but what Rob? What Rob is saying is that they believe that more people will come into the office to use their credit card to pay and then it will take more staff time.
Speaker 2:But I don't think well, you know, it's a whole heck of a lot less than six hundred thousand dollars. Right and just so you. Just so you know. I think the mayor kind of alluded to it we it's not a general fund hit directly, so it doesn't hit us directly. It's kind of a pastor we get reimbursed back us directly. It's kind of a pass-through. We get reimbursed back through the enterprise times, water, sewer later. But to the mayor's point you know that does impact rates on a small, small school.
Speaker 8:I think before we had asked well, I had asked one time if we have a way of rewarding staff for coming up with incentives that save money. That's a lot of money, and I guess I'm just speechless when we sit here and act like in one regard. We'll ask for $170,000, and that's a big deal. But over here, $600,000 is not a big deal, it's the same money.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, look at what we've done today.
Speaker 8:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We agreed to pay almost Between seven and eight hundred thousand dollars to start building standards. It could almost, it could almost be funded by this in one year agree, and it's a choice.
Speaker 8:If somebody wants to pay their bill online because they're rushing, I do it all the time I don't have a problem paying five more dollars for it. If I want to go in, well, I'm never gonna come in. I don't have a problem paying five more dollars for it. If I want to go in, well, I'm never going to come in. I'm always going to pay mine online. But that was a new thing. It was a good thing. It's going to hit them somewhere down the road anyway.
Speaker 8:So if it's something that I have a choice to make. I'd much rather be able to make the choice to say hey, today, I can't get by there.
Speaker 2:I'm just gonna pay it online or I'm gonna link my bank account to it, and it didn't make me pay it on. I mean, that's a choice, what we could do. If you want us to do this, we can. We can, I mean, you can stay, you can stay, it can stay in, but we can come back to you with what's it going to look like if it gets changed. I don't know that, we can flip the switch in a couple days, but what's this going to look like as far as a policy change, and then you decide what you want to do from there.
Speaker 11:I want to make sure I hear this because I'm halfway asleep and I apologize. When we decide to go online with people paying their utility bills, okay, some people like it, some people don't, and some companies are going now they won't even take cash and we might end up having to go through that process somewhere down the line. How has it affected us? Our research? How has it affected us in the process? You know how we have in what we invested in. How have we, what type of increase that we have? What type has it benefited us as a city To have this in place?
Speaker 2:well, it has kept a lot of the walk-in traffic from walking in, so a lot of people are utilizing it, as the bees will show you. That allows the staff at customer service to focus on new accounts. One of the ideas was you have people coming in and paying their bills and it was taking up all this time and the new accounts which take more time to establish were getting pushed behind and we were getting behind on that so that's one benefit, one's an ease for the, for the, for the folks using it.
Speaker 2:And then, if you remember, we were, we had a, not a subscription, but we had one of our software vendors was basically going to go up their charges. Right, you've changed. There's a little bit of a delta in there that I'd have to look back to see that we were going to have to pay more anyway. Now I don't think it's anywhere close to the $600,000.
Speaker 1:I could get you that information and I think it was just and maybe the policy that we imposed worked extremely well. But I think when we talked about this last, the number was more like in the 200 feet. I mean it's astronomically higher than it was when we went one or two years where we charged the fee right. Or did we ever? We imposed this, whatever you call it, what do you call?
Speaker 8:it Convenience fee. Convenience fee.
Speaker 2:Convenience fee. Well, I know that.
Speaker 11:Yeah, previous to this. Yes, conveniently, conveniently Well, I know that. Yeah, previous to this. Yes, the IT when she made that, she made the recommendation that we switch from the service that we did have because of the higher rates and this was a better. So I'm just wondering now how effective this is. Now, you know, when you compare somebody to one thing and it may not work out as good as you thought it was, I want to know the difference in that. How much are we saving? Are we still benefiting from?
Speaker 2:this, we're benefiting from it. We're paying more money. I think that's the whole crux of this.
Speaker 8:Yeah, the system is working. I love the system, but I just think we just need to edit that part.
Speaker 2:And we were not able. There was some issue and again I've got to go back and look at my notes on the details of it but there was some issue that was not going to allow us to do this online and we were trying to make it more convenient for people which it has done, but it's costly and Kosti's right.
Speaker 8:It was somewhere in the $200,000 to $300 hundred thousand dollar range what we thought it was going to. Well, when I go back to, there's all these little things that cost us a whole lot of money that we're talking about and we make really light of them and act like, oh, half a million dollars is not that's a lot of money, unless a lot of taxpayers dollars, and then on the flip side, you're asking them to pay more money for something else, when the people that want to make a choice to come in or pay their credit card bill a lot, that's a choice. It's just different to me. So, when we're considering what we're doing for our constituents, to me it would just be easier for us to just make good decisions, save money in every department that we can and go back to working with our staff and department heads. Guys, if you can save money, if you see cost savings, give them good Lord. I mean $600,000?.
Speaker 8:I'm pretty sure they know that too, because when these things come up in their departments they have to review this thing every month. If they can come up with some cost savings, let's put it on our staff and give them something back. Come up with some cost savings? Let's put it on our staff and give them something back. If they're saving us money as a group, as a council, as a city, give them some reward for, say, six hundred thousand dollars. That if it's not benefiting them and they're just like, oh well, we're used to it, oh well, we're gonna eat it.
Speaker 1:Or oh well, we're gonna get something back, we're gonna get rewarded as a department, let's do something to kind of help fix some of this stuff, because it sounds like we've got a lot of little teeny tiny thing and if we need if we need a lot of need to hire a person who's, yeah, only job is to do new accounts, I mean that's, if that's, if that's the best, if that's the best argument you can throw them, I'd rather spend whatever our package is to have a new accounts officer or whatever it's. It's gonna be a heck of a lot less than this amount I'll give you all some, it wasn't just.
Speaker 2:I'll give you all a summary of the whole decision. If you remember, there were like four or five different aspects, ladies to it. We had an extension policy where people were riding every single month. We had One software system was going away with fees going up on. It was. It was pretty complicated.
Speaker 8:And I'm not that concerned about what we did. I think we did good. I'm just saying that going forward. I don't think that I want to see this again next year. Well, I don't know that. The fees are the means. No, that's what I'm saying. So if we can give, let the customer eat the fee when they use their credit card. Why can't we just make that?
Speaker 11:decision, right to let them right so I make a motion that we just add in the credit card fee if they want to use the credit card fee what'd you say, doris you?
Speaker 8:say customers eat the fee yeah, if they want to use their credit card, they pay a five dollar credit card fee. That's a choice, or? Whatever that fee is, or they can put their account on with the bank, which is no fee or they can go take it.
Speaker 1:I'll second that the question is to let the customer pay a convenience fee if they use their credit card to pay their bills, if they use their credit card to pay their bills?
Speaker 6:It don't matter.
Speaker 1:We're getting ready to vote All that are in favor of doing that.
Speaker 9:Can I say that one of the big pushes with electric utility payments was the credit card fees and when we changed our system we advertised the payout of that, so there's no credit card fees.
Speaker 1:There aren't right now, I ain't voting for that, we're going to keep it.
Speaker 11:No credit card fees there aren't no right now. Hey, I ain't both for that, we're gonna keep it no credit card fee.
Speaker 9:We was not. What was she saying?
Speaker 8:What was she saying? No credit card fee.
Speaker 4:She's saying that we said that we would charge the customer the credit card fee.
Speaker 8:We'd eat the fee. We'd eat the fee. We also didn't know it was going to be $600,000 a year. Yeah, but that was the push to bring some interest.
Speaker 2:What is your problem with that? Or did that reach just advertising? That was a big push for us.
Speaker 1:That's a big push or that we just advertised. That was a big push for us. That's a big push. But the idea has been choice. You've got other choices, is what we're saying. It's not as if that's the only choice that you've got.
Speaker 8:How long has that been? That was just implemented. If it hadn't been a year, I wouldn't necessarily be setting myself up. What'd you say? I ain't voting for it? Yeah, you're setting yourself up. What'd you say? I'll set something up. Yeah, you're setting yourself up. Is there something that we can work out with the vendor? Let me do this.
Speaker 2:Let us get back with you with better information. I think that'd be best. If we're going to walk through the whole thing, it's probably better to walk through the whole thing back with you.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I'll withdraw the motion how do you want to do that?
Speaker 1:when do you want to do that?
Speaker 2:we'll get on it tomorrow and um, the time is yeah, we'll get on it tomorrow, I'll just. I'll either send something out or we'll have it at the uh six three okay, so what?
Speaker 1:what other? What other items or concerns that people have? Uh, we've got to talk about the housing fund.
Speaker 8:That was the fourth one.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean it's in there. So if we don't have rejection, it stays in.
Speaker 8:Okay, so we added that in there, but you do know that next year, by the time it comes around again, we're going to have to figure it out again, so do we not need to add it in twice? This year covers this year. This year, when the fund is due again, was in January.
Speaker 1:No, it's, uh it's. We haven't paid anything yet.
Speaker 8:No, we haven't.
Speaker 1:I know that yeah so we're we're just saying for the next fifth, for the over the next 12 months, we need the 190. And that's what we said. We already said we do that and they were able to budget that. So we will have to look at it again next year. Will there be a good time at the?
Speaker 11:retreat.
Speaker 3:That's not a problem. What's it going to look like five years from now?
Speaker 1:Well, when we made the commitment this is our commitment that we made One year, one year, and so this time next year we can. We can have the conversation about whether it has worked for us and whether we should go for it there's an expectation, by united way, that it'll be reviewed again for next year, not? Other other people committed to three years, but we only said one and it won't make sense, yeah it makes sense, I mean we and it won't be great.
Speaker 11:Does that make sense, kevin? Yeah, it makes sense, I mean we.
Speaker 1:if you think we can renege on credit card fee, then we certainly. If we can't renege on something we put out that we won't charge the fee, we sure can't renege on that. Okay, all right, good point. Floor's open. Anything in the budget that needs to be discussed, it's usually well, we don't have, um, we don't have to make a motion. Well, I mean not today, if you were to leave here today.
Speaker 2:everybody agrees basically in concept with what we have if you would tell me and Tim to develop a budget ordinance. We would develop a budget ordinance which is the official document that adopts it, and we would bring to you in the June 3rd. I agree with that?
Speaker 11:Yeah, I think so. You need a second.
Speaker 1:I think the only thing we have to look at immediately, I guess, is I mean, we've resolved everything, resolved everything else there, either in or out, but is the credit card charges? I think take a motion. Or you want us to just nod and say we're, we're agreeing. I mean, we took votes on other things, we took some things out. We said this water series stay the same. We said we would join.
Speaker 4:I mean capture the building standards. We would give 70,000 out of the general fund of the.
Speaker 1:CBB yeah, that's it. So it looks like the only thing that we're left to look at is what we want to do about the credit card yeah, in that we'll get on it as soon as possible.
Speaker 2:We'll get on it as soon as possible?
Speaker 5:Maybe we can. I do want to have a conversation to see how much of that is simply technology. We had it deployed, the dollar amount, how much was the vendor increase? And then how much is the actual credit card transaction fee? Because now we're going to grow that If we carve that out, it turns out to be to be. Well, out of the 600, only 200 is the credit card fee. I think council should want to know how much that is.
Speaker 1:Also. I mean, but it's listed in here. I forgot. I wrote down the page but I forgot what page it is. It says credit card fee, but you're saying it may incorporate other components associated with going to that credit card.
Speaker 1:All right, well, and the thing is, if we're that close, uh, I mean I wouldn't drop everything to find that out tomorrow morning. I mean, if we don't, if we don't get it, you know we, just as long as we do it in June, we're okay. Yeah, I think so. So, uh, I mean, and I know people had we had a split vote on one or two things, but I mean, and I know people had we had a split vote on one or two things, but I mean, but for that, are people ready? Would be ready to vote for a budget based on what we've talked about today? Anything else that has come up? Is that fair? Yes, okay, I don't think we vote on the budget in this county. No, we do that. Okay, thank you, okay. Can I make you a prayer? Thank you, yes, for my buddy John Ferguson.
Speaker 4:I know he was talking about the school bus at the airport and Ron kind of skipped on it.
Speaker 1:If our fuel sales continue to go up a little this year.
Speaker 3:He's going to need another guy, a person from the fire. I don't know if he's going to be able to get a job, I don't know. Continue to go up a little bit this year. He's gonna need another guy, a person from the financial school in point.
Speaker 1:Our people say that and a part-time restaurant manager. Part-time.
Speaker 2:No, not, and usually with John we'll talk through those things. The good thing again about an enterprise is you adjust. You know we can be easier than a gentleman.
Speaker 5:We'll probably be better here without asking for a question, and Steve with John, our conversations are more of volumes that are driving the sales, not just price increases. Just in case you get a price, it doesn't mean you need to add headcount Y'all.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry CBB got a little sideways, I underestimated it. That's on me.
Speaker 1:Very good, thank you, I don't think we need to Do. We need a motion to adjourn, okay.
Speaker 6:So moved Second.
Speaker 1:Motion is seconded by Joe and David.
Speaker 7:All in favor please say aye, aye, thank you. Well, thank you.
