 Call the special meeting of the common council order. Please call the roll. Boren, Berg, Serta, Davis. Excuse. Gough. Excuse. Hannah, Kittleson, Clowness, Manny, Meyer, Montemayor, Racky, Ryan, Sushia, Vanderweal, and Verhasselt, 14 present. Quorum is present. This time we will ask Sue Richards to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Madam City Clerk. All women, Hannah. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would move that the report of officers 1581 and 1583 be accepted and placed on file. Second. Motion second. Under discussion. There be a none. All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. 1551, beginning to 1569, all of them, Hannah. I move that the report of committees be accepted and adopted. Motion and second to accept 1551 through 1569. Any discussion? Alderman Vanderweal. Thank you, Your Honor. I have a question for Rich Gebhardt on 1565. If there's some confusion, if you could explain a little bit what we're doing with that. I believe we passed the general ordinance through council and that we raised that fee. Now, are we restoring that money or where we're at with that? Thank you, Your Honor. The there is a listing of amendments that is being recommended by the finance committee that was on your desk this evening. You found them in your bin. Two sheets stapled together. The caption says 207, budget analysis. In about the third section, there are adjustments for the building inspection. And it does show increasing the revenue estimate for the sewer permits and to increase the appropriations for the salaries and building inspection by 33,662. Excuse me, I'm sorry, I gave you the wrong caption. It's finance committee recommendations. My apologies, right in the middle of the page. Correct. Again, I'll review that. OK. The proposal from the finance committee for this evening is to increase the revenue estimate for the building inspection sewer permits and increase the appropriations for the building inspection salaries by 33,662. In addition to that, because the estimate for the increase of revenue is 60,000, the finance committee is also proposing to increase the appropriation for the general contingency by 26,338. President Burke. I'd like to pull forward, if we're done with discussing this matter. Is there any discussion on that anymore? OK. OK, this will be 1562. That is the budget for the police department. Motion in second? Well, just what is it? What I'd like to do is, in reading the document, the sentence that said, recommends that the report of committee be accepted and adopted without the amendment of 1.5%. I would like to strike the word out, of without, so that the budget for the police department is increased by 1.5%. This will be applied to the salary line item. Mr. Gibbard, there was a second to that. Seconded. Almond Ryan, second? Mr. Gibbard? Mayor, if I may just suggest, since this is the report of the finance committee, I'm not sure about the procedure for amending a committee's report. The real document you want to amend with that motion is the last one on the agenda. 1588. That actually establishes the budget and establishes the levy. These are just house cleaning, report of committees, and report of officers that are coming in. If that is your interest is to increase the police department's budget by an amount, and you're able to tell us where the money's going to come from, and you can do it on 1588. Right. Is it OK? Right. I've got the motion. OK. Let's draw a second. Thank you, gentlemen. Anything else? Otherwise, we're going to act on 1551 through 1569 to accept and adopt report of committees. Holders in favor, say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Alderman Hanna, 1587. I move that a resolution 1587, 150607 be put upon its passage. Motion in second to put 1587 upon its passage. Under discussion. There being none, all those in favor, say aye. Well, hold on. We need a roll call. I'm sorry. Yes. Excuse me. We need a roll call. Yes. Please call the roll. Burke, Serta, Hanna, Kielsen, Clayunas, Manny, Meijer, Montemayor, Radke, Ryan, Sushia, Vanderwheel, Verhasel, and Boren, 14 ayes. Motion carries. Thank you. 1588, Alderman Hanna. I move that resolution 1588, 160607 be put upon its passage. Motion in second to put 1588 upon its passage. Under discussion. Alderman Burr. Thank you. Again, Mr. Mayor, I think at this time, I would like to make an amendment to the police budget to increase that budget by 1.5% with that amount to be placed in the salary and fringe light item. Under discussion. Yes, thank you, Mayor. Under discussion, the 1.5% for me represents a reasonable compromise to maintain a level of staffing that I feel we will be shortchanged with. The police budget was, that will increase the budget by about $158,000. The 07 budget was reduced by $76,041 from the 2006 budget. The percent and a half increase restores that cut and in addition adds an additional $82,873 to that budget. This roughly translates to two patrol positions. My belief is that it's vital that we continue to plan and maintain increasing our commitment to public service. Police services are among the most specialized services the city has to offer. Annually, the police department responds to some 50,000 complaints each year. Every time a citizen picks up the phone, they expect to have a prompt and adequate response to their concern. A factor that I consider significant is that it takes approximately one year from the date of hire to put a police officer on the street due to the training time, et cetera. I think it is vital that we continue to have a stream of qualified personnel so that we can continue to account for retirements and the ongoing personnel needs of our department. Thank you. Alderman Recky. Thank you, Your Honor. As much as I believe in police protection and the public protection safety of our citizens, I also believe that all the other departments came in with 0% increase in the budget. And I have a question for Chief Kirk, if I may, Your Honor. Is that allowable? Yes. OK. Chief Kirk, please come up. To my understanding that this money would probably put two more patrolmen back on the street, did we not approve money last year for three patrolmen that were never hired? Is that to my understanding, Chief? Well, like this year, last year was no different. We had to give back, if we want to stay at a 0% increase, we had to give back $534,000. So how do you do that? We're at 90-some percent of our budget is personnel. So last year when we had to give back a certain dollar amount, Rich could probably provide that answer to you. We had to leave these positions vacant because we agreed, in order to give that money back, if you wanted to maintain whatever budgeted items we were allowed or whatever budget numbers we were provided, we couldn't hire anyone. If you hire someone, you lay them off. So we had no choice. If you want me to come up with a $534,000 give back this year, I just can't fill the vacancies. If you are to tell me that you want me to hire three more people last year, I need $210,000. For this year, you want me to hire five more, $70,000 apiece. So was it my choice? No, it wasn't. You had to give back a certain dollar. So if we approve this money to the budget tonight, will those two people be hired in 2007? Yes. OK. Thank you. Thank you. Paul and Ryan? Thank you, Chief. There were any of my voices, so if I sound like a sponge about spudging Patrick, it's totally unintentional. I agree with President Burd that this is not a huge amount of money in the city budget for a 1.5% increase. That's only increasing the police department budget by $82,000 over last year. The police department has in the upcoming year Assistant Chief Weiss is retiring. There is another person of high rank in the department that may be retiring. We are not asking those positions that Chief has agreed will not be filled. They will not be advanced pay grades to fill those positions. What we're trying to do here is to hire some young police personnel to become in training that they will be on the streets. They will not be in an office. They will be doing preventive policing, which is what our department tries to do. If we do not hire personnel this year, next year, we're going to take the hit anyway. We're going to have to hire that many more people. From what I understand, it takes a good amount of time to train a police officer. They'll just take them out of the academy and give them a set of keys and a pistol and say, they'll do your job. In order to keep the efficiency of the police department where it needs to be, there's a lot easier to train two people at a time than five or six people at a time. I just believe it is in the best interest of our community to keep the police department fully funded. Crime is not going down in the city. It's not going to go down in the city. If we do not fund the police department properly and have preventive policing, have personnel at the high schools, liaison officers, the DARE program, et cetera. If we do not do these things, we are going to transition the military from preventive policing to the reactive force, basically going up and mopping up what's happened, rather than trying to have enough personnel in the streets to avoid that situation of happening in the first place. I think this, I believe this is supported by the majority of the public and the majority of the citizens in the city. And therefore, I do agree with all of you for it. Thank you. Alderman Susha. Thank you, Your Honor. I just wanted to clarify something that Alderman Radke had started with the chief, that at the beginning of 2006, there was money in the police budget to hire more officers. Chief Kirk decided to divert that money to help pay for the wage increases for the union settlements. It was that decision. It's not that the money was given back to the taxpayers. It was a decision made by Chief Kirk to divert the money to fund something else within his budget. But the Alderman approved those positions prior to last year, probably even before I was on the council. And I think if those positions had been filled, perhaps I could go along with maintaining the people that are on, that actually have been hired. But being that those people have never been hired, I don't think it's right that now suddenly we decide that we need to hire them. Because if you remember back on October 31, the Sheboygan Press ran an article talking about how the Sheboygan area is the sixth safest community metropolitan area in the United States of America. We are the sixth safest area in the country. It's great to strive to be number one, but I don't think the answer is to dump this extra financial burden on the tax rolls. I do agree that we could use more officers on the street. That one hurt, but there's another way of doing that. You do not need to hire from outside the organization to fill the bottom of the table of organization. The answer is that we have too many sergeants, lieutenants, captains up at the top. The answer is to put some of those folks back on the street. There's no reason we should have about 20 people in supervisory positions sitting behind desks when we have about 56 people or so out on the streets. That span of control is less than three to one. In any other sector, a three to one ratio, that's not normal. That even if you're in a public safety, those people in the management ranks need to be back on the streets. And that is something that salary and grievances working on. I've been to several meetings with the mayor, Alderman Manny, the police chief, when the process of looking at different options. But I think that is the answer to get more people on the streets is that we push them out from behind their desk and back onto the street rather than hire new officers. So I will not increase, I will not support increasing their budget. They're no more special than the city assessor's office or public works. Everyone else held it to zero. I know the library was approved for a little bit of an increase. I voted against that. So I'm gonna stick to my guns and vote against this increase as well. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Susha. Alderman, Warren. Thank you, your honor. In expanding, first of all, on what Alderman Ryan had said about deputy chief Weiss retiring and another senior person in the department retiring, from what I know about deputy chief Weiss salary and benefit package, if we are not replacing him, that money right there should replace, would probably put two officers on the street. And I would imagine the other individual with salary and benefits, probably one officer on the street. Also, for 2007, the budget for health insurance for the police department is going to be $1.5 million. Currently, the police union is paying 2.5% of their premiums with a first dollar coverage, no deductible, unheard of in these days. That 2.5% out of a $1.5 million budget for healthcare comes to $37,500 contribution from 87 sworn officers, which amounts to $431 a year or $35 a month. Again, unheard of in today's and the public or private sector. If the police, and I'm not here to negotiate contracts, but it's high time our police union gets real with what they're going to contribute to health and towards their health insurance premiums. For example, if they would contribute 10% of the $1.5 million, that would bring in an additional $150,000 or at what I was told by Mr. Surick to hire a police officer salary and benefits with a family medical plan, $58,000, that would put two officers on the street. At 15% contribution towards their health insurance, $225,000 or four more officers. At 20%, an additional $300,000 or five officers. And at 25%, and incidentally, I believe Alderman Hanna brought in a report from the Rand Corporation earlier this year to finance or at least mentioned it in finance, that the average private sector contribution towards health insurance in 2006 is 28% of their premium. But let's just say hypothetically the police officers decided to pay 25% towards their health insurance premiums. That's $375,000 in additional money or six officers. So I think before we talk about tapping the city of Sheboygan taxpayers for more money, the union has to get realistic and do their part and save us some money on what it's costing us for health insurance. We have to get real and we have to be realistic. And 2.5% towards health insurance and this day and age is not realistic. So I guess before I would vote to increase what we're charging the taxpayers, let's see what the union is gonna do for the benefit of the taxpayers. Thank you. Thank you Alderman Bourne, Alderman Montemayla. Thank you, Your Honor. Good words Alderman Bourne. The other departments have made their adjustments. It was difficult, it was hard, they've done it and they're still doing their jobs. I fully believe the police department can make the adjustments also within their 10 and a half million dollar budget. I can't support asking the taxpayers to come in their pockets and give more money. The other departments have done it, it's only fair that police do it also. Thank you Alderman Montemayla, Alderman Meyer. Thank you, Your Honor. I just wanna say I agree with Alderman Bourne, Alderman Sousha, Alderman Montemayla. I think there are other ways of finding this money to hire more officers like Alderperson Sousha said, we're looking at the TO. I think right there is a great opportunity to put more officers on the street and we are the sixth safest city in the nation. That tells me that our police department is doing a fantastic job with the money they have, with the personnel they have and I do not feel unsafe in my city. I'm appalled when I hear people say that they are fearful to walk down our streets because that reflects badly on our police department and our police department does a fantastic job and I will not vote for an increase in the taxes. Thank you Alderman Meyer, Alderman Ryan. Thank you once again Mr. Mayor. I agree that insurance, the amount of dollars that the police department contributes toward insurance is unrealistically low and I do believe that they realize that also and that will be changing. However, to demote an officer to say, okay, you've done a fine job, but we're gonna demote you, you're gonna go back on patrol. From what I've found out over the years of having employees, if you're going to demote somebody, you might as well just fire them because their performance for doing a good job, getting it to motion, their morale will be gone, their ambition will be gone, their drive to do their job will be gone. If you demote somebody and it doesn't matter if you demote them at the same rate of pay, if you demote them for doing their job, you might as well just fire them because that person is not going to be around for long. They're going to go somewhere else. If they are around, I guarantee you they will not be doing the job that they did before. So I don't think that taking police officers from their present position, awarding them by demoting them is a good thing. It's amazing to me how on this council, we've consistently picked out the police department as the whipping boy, so to speak. I think it's time we stand behind our police department. The sixth safest city in the country is a great thing and that is commendable to the efforts of our police department. But is it bad to have the fifth safest? Are we going to be the sixth safest next year after not replacing a couple officers or two years down the road when we do not have qualified officers because we've demoted some and they've gone elsewhere? I do believe that the police department will negotiate fairly on the insurance question. It is unrealistic for the police department and all city departments to continue at the present contribution that they are responsible for on their insurance. At the same time, I think it is our duty as a council to the employees of the city, to the public employees to treat them with respect and to take into account the morale of city employees. I do believe that budget cutting should be done through retirement, through attrition and changing the TO accordingly. Not by demoting people, not by laying people off or firing people. We have a great workforce in the city and in order to keep them, we cannot continue to treat them as salary numbers rather than an asset to the city that they've been in the past. I do believe in our police department, it will be the case that we will be losing qualified officers if we start demoting people. As people retire and these are the higher salaries, to not replace those positions is a great idea. To have more officers on the street is a great idea. To demote people is not the answer. We will not have the same quality of officers that we presently have. And therefore, I again ask the council to agree with the increase on this budget. Thank you. Alderman, Hannah, you're next. Thank you, Mayor. And I know this is somewhat of an academic discussion tonight but still I think it's important that we have it. I probably get next to the dog issue, I probably get more phone calls about how we budget for our police department. So I know it's a topic that's of interest to our citizens. I think some good points have been made tonight. I think the benefit issue is clearly an area that we need to work on. The national statistics are obvious that we need to drive our benefit packages much more towards the national norms. I too, I think would much more favor the utilization of retirement events to reorganize a department. I think there's merit to what Alderman Ryan says in terms of morale and that the demographics of the department actually lend itself to us doing that. So I think that there's gonna be opportunities out there. Yes, the job of the police department has been outstanding. The national ranking is wonderful. And it's always difficult to think about spending more money in an area that's doing well. You know, it's tough spending money to prevent that heart attack that doesn't happen. So you've got to balance some things there. At the end of the day, I would like to see more officers. How we get there is really not a big concern to me. Whether we do that through reorganization, whether we do that through increasing by one and a half percent, whether we're able to find fund balances to do it at the end of the day, we need more police officers out on the street. So I like the fact that this discussion has been friendly and informative. And I think we need to move forward with that. Thank you, Alderman Hennep. Alderman Montalala. Thank you, Your Honor. I don't believe any member of the police department would feel that it was a demotion to be working directly with the citizens again. I just don't think so. And the police department has not been the whipping boy. I think they've been our favorite child for a long time with repeated increases in their budget. I think history will show that. Definitely they're not the whipping boy by any means. More than any other department, they've received increases. Also, the liaison officer with the school, that is not in danger whatsoever at all. That's not even part of this budget. Thank you. Okay, Alderman Montalala, Alderman Vanderwill. Thank you, Your Honor. The reason why we're the sixth safest city is because the police department has been a priority in the past and because of the caliber of officers that we have. You can't just walk in here and become an officer. You need to be highly qualified. I have talked to people who are moving out of state because they know they won't be able to get a job as an officer in Sheboygan because at this time they're just not qualified enough. And it has to do a lot with the qualifications of our officers. And not increasing tonight is, I believe, is putting us in the wrong direction. What we'll see when we start doing that is the caliber of the candidates of the officers that we have will suffer and the quality of the performance will suffer. And about four or five years ago, shared revenue was an issue. We were concerned that the state was gonna take it away and there was an election and we didn't know it was gonna happen. And I remember at that time that Governor Doyle said that he will reinstate shared revenue because every citizen in the state should have police and fire when you pick up that phone. That that is a priority and that is why he reinstated shared revenue. So for me, as long as we benefit from shared revenue, police and fire will be a priority. Thank you. Thank you, I'll remind you all. Alderman Mani, your next, sir. Thank you, Your Honor. If you look at my record, I've almost always supported the police with my votes. I'll be voting against this amendment though this evening. And as a part of that, I'd like to share some budget thoughts because these things deeply concern me as I look ahead at the next year at this budget and the totality of our financial situation at this point in history. So bear with me. These things I think I just wanna say in general. Next year, the loss of revenue, wheel tax $210,000, stormwater fee $500,000, loss of revenue in 08, $500,000 stormwater fee, increased costs in 08, the police station, $300,000 for operations. We may have a possible revenue increase in 08, but it's highly theoretical at this point. That is, if a study committee would determine in fact, that taking the ambulance service would in fact provide the same quality service and bring in some dollars. That is to be determined. Beyond that, there are no other revenue streams of significance that I find beyond the levy. For perspective, in the 10 years prior to 06, the tax levy has basically gone up about 1% over the inflation rate. During about the 12 years prior to 2006, both DPW and the library maintained their costs at about the same point, which means they then decrease their actual operating revenue vis-à-vis inflation by a good 30%. During that same timeline, we maintained our revenues with the inflation rate for both fire and police. Those facts clearly indicate that we have been committed to fire and police, public protection and safety, as our number one commitment in public service. At the same time, those figures indicate that both DPW and the library have increased their efficiency markedly by reducing the number of employees and by using further more efficient technologies. Big picture issues as I look at them. Number one, government is by nature evolutionary and not revolutionary, or so we hope. It's taken us a long time to get here. It's going to take us a good while to get out of this situation. There is an elephant in our midst. It's the insurance cost that we all know. We need soon to apply pressure upwards and we need to invite other municipalities to do the same so that state government begins to look at and bring out a committee, a workable, multifaceted insurance approach that will combine mandatory involvement, universal coverage and market mechanisms. Today, because of the situation with the cost for medical care and coverage, we have what is sometimes an adversarial relationship established with our unions. It's not their fault. The costs have gone up for insurance as they have. On the other hand, it's not our fault that we don't have the income to well pay all the requirements to take care of those coverages. Labor is becoming cost prohibitive for Sheboygan as well as for countless other cities. No longer can this continue the way it's gone. It's made worse by the situation culturally and economically. The rich are getting richer. The poor are getting poorer. There is a shrinking middle class. Therefore, there's lots of anger of living in political life. I think it gets focused locally. We don't verbalize nationally very often. We don't think we have any impact on the state but we can speak locally and maybe that's a very good thing. The League of Municipalities in one of their recent publications noted that this is a very difficult time to be involved in city government and service. We get lots of anger directed at us. We're not responsible. This is not of our creation in some sense. It's a cultural thing. It's a national issue. We see the realities of that flowing out the sides and through the seams consistently. So, in the midst of that, what's responsible government? I think it's the first call to transform the insurance system. Secondly, short term, we must do what we can to find cost savings in our insurance coverages and provide more cost shifting to our employees as most in the private sector carry. That has been verbalized tonight quite well and I appreciate that. I'm voting against this because I think we have to have shock treatment in the unions, in the city hall, in our whole population so that we go beyond this space and speak to Terry Van Ackeren, to Joe Leipem and to others and to get other citizens doing the same so that we begin to address an issue that's threatening our whole national fabric as well as coming down incredibly on local municipalities. So, shock value. I'm voting yes for the budget as it is, although I hate it. I like budget increases slightly below the inflation rate. That's what I would prefer. This point in history, I don't think allows us to do that as much as I would like that. So, for what it's worth, I'm voting no. Thank you, Alderman Manny. Next we have Alderman Rahasel. Thank you, Your Honor. Like Alderman Manny, I've tried to gain a historical perspective on this budget issue, department by department. And just to share that with the group here a little bit, over the last 10 years, the police department budget has seen a total increase or cumulative increase of about 45 to 50%. Okay, now to put that in perspective because it is a 10-year period, DPW was nearly flat, the fire department was up a little over 30% and the parks department was up a little over 20% during that same time. So, it gives you some perspective between departments. In my mind, this isn't about picking on people or picking on departments. I think we have a very good police department. I have some policemen who are my neighbors. Some of them I'd consider friends even. So, I don't think, in my mind at least, it's not an issue about picking on them. I think we just have an issue right now. We need to manage our resources. So, I guess I would just like to ask the police department to work with us here in 07 and we'll see what we can do after that. But I think we just need a little bit of help financially here in 07. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Rassel. Next we have Alderman Warren. Thank you, Your Honor. On what we've talked about so far, just to reiterate briefly, if we would take the salary and benefits of Deputy Chief Weiss retiring, and he's gonna be a tremendous loss to the police department in my opinion, his salary and benefits, and if he does retire in December, that money should free up in early 07. That should be two officers. The other senior individual that I'm told tonight is gonna be retiring, presuming salary and benefits should equal one officer. That's three officers. Depending on what we do with the union negotiations, if they go up to 10% contribution towards health insurance, that's $150,000 or two officers. That's five officers right there without even considering this amendment. If by chance we could even get the union to go up to 15%, that would be $225,000 in additional savings or four officers or a total of seven without even considering this amendment. I guess I would like to make a motion to table this until after we find out what the union negotiations are going to end up being, and then come back to the council, and if we're still short 40 or 50 or $60,000, I would rather consider it then after we see all of these pieces of the puzzle fit together in early 07. So I'm gonna make a motion to table this until after the union negotiations. Alderman Barn, the budget, we're asking to pass the budget tonight. There is no need to table. The budget can either be passed or not passed, and that issue can still be addressed later. So there's no need for that. So if you don't mind, would you withdraw that motion? I'll withdraw. Thank you, Alderman Barn. Appreciate that. Next we have Alderman Susha. Thank you, Your Honor. I just wanted to clarify, when I spoke earlier in regards to taking some of the sergeants and lieutenants and pushing them back down and putting some of those folks back on the street, I never said anything about demoting anybody. Everybody would keep their titles. It's just they would have more interaction with the public. So I don't want this to be viewed as people being punished or demoted in any way. If anything, I would like to work with the chief on creating more opportunities for people to be professional career police officers. My background is in sales, and you could be coming as a sales representative, you're promoted to a senior representative and ultimately to an executive representative. And I'd like to see some type of promotion within the ranks of the officer, as well as putting more sergeants and possibly lieutenants on the street as well. So I think there's lots of opportunities for changes and we should exercise those opportunities before we just keep doing business the same old, same old and hire from outside and keep bringing in more. But in regards to prioritizing, I mean, I think everybody thinks that public protection safety is very important. And with a 10 and a half million dollar budget, I'm not concerned about the police department. They will function just fine. I'm a little bit more concerned about over the years what the long-term effects will be if we continue to cut public works. Whoever made the comment that they're running very efficiently, I agree. They're doing a great job. But you also have to look in terms of, we do have a drug problem in Sheboygan, but let's think about what happens if we start cutting public works too much. The citizens of this community need clean water to live. We have to make sure they have clean water. Imagine what would happen if you could no longer flush your toilet. If we keep cutting public works, we can't take these things for granted. Like we just have to accept that. That'll always be there, but oh, the police need more money. No, I think we need to start looking at things differently. We have to look at the need for keeping our streets clean. I mean, if we didn't have public works, if we didn't have money in their budget to plow the snow, how would the emergency vehicles get through in the middle of winter? How many extra car accidents? How many citizens will be killed if we don't plow the snow? So I think that to say that in the past, the police department perhaps was the favorite child in the words of Alderperson Montmere. I think I would have to agree. And I think it's time that we don't have, we don't single anybody out and treat them favored. They all need to be treated equally. This council decided in August that there'd be a 0% increase. We decided that together. And I think we need to stick to our guns. The 0% increase is where we need to go this year. Thank you. Thank you, Almond Susha. Next we have President Burke. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. In terms of the 0% increase, my belief was that we were going to take a look at what that would mean. And I think we've done that. And I think I commend all the departments for coming in and doing a good job. Again, some of that is done by transferring money that's left over at the end of the year to make up revenue for 2007. What we're really talking about is a three quarter of 1% increase in the police department budget over this year. You know, there are some things we can control and some things we can't. If this council could realistically control healthcare in Sheboygan and we could bottle that, I think we would probably be on the cover of Time Magazine. We can't do that. That's not something that we can easily control at this time. For me, the focus is more on what can we do this evening in terms of our budget? And that's why I am suggesting that what we can do is look at maintaining some level of human resources in our pipeline so that we can continue to have trained and qualified officers available to serve the public. I think we talked many times about other departments and what we can and what we can control. One of the things we can control is a number of calls that come in for police services. And I think if you look, that has been an increase. I think the nature of the calls are changing. And my belief is that we need to continue to be responsive by supporting a level of human resources that are trained and in that training pipeline so that we don't all of a sudden get a bulge two or three years from now when we are caught short of not having those human resources. Thank you. Albert Ullerman, Hannah is next. Thank you, Mayor. And I agree with Alderperson Manning's comments that the elephant in the living room is insurance cost. I mean, that's what's driving all of our discussion. And it's, you know, we've got multiple departments that are wonderful and we're fighting over scarce resources and insurance costs are eroding those resources. I mean, that's the issue. Whether there's been a legitimate increases in the cost of policing our city over the last 10 years, I bet you there have been. I mean, I have no argument with the numbers. Some departments lend themselves to efficiencies and some are just manpower intensive. And so we need to strike a balance there. You know, I just would hope and I had hoped during the entire discussion process that somehow we'd be able to find fun balances to adequately get enough police officers on the street. And I'm encouraged by the comments of some of the Alderman tonight that we're gonna be looking at that in 07. And I really hope we do come back and look at that. We need to do that. I know that the police department takes a large portion of our budget. I wouldn't argue that that's not inappropriate. And I really believe we are ignoring some very real costs at the Department of Public Works. And I'm very concerned about all of those structure things. The mayor and I are gonna try to work with Madison to try to improve shared revenues. I mean, there's some big picture things on the horizon. But let's keep working together. You know, let's try to treat people fairly and let's make sure that our citizens have adequate services. Thank you. Next, we have Vice President Schroeder, Senator. Thank you, Your Honor. Just to give a little history here on our budget process, I just wanna make mention that when we had discussed the budget originally and we had decided on those older persons who had decided on just doing a 0% increase, it was reiterated to us again that this was something we would bring to the department heads. We'd allow discussion and see if it was feasible. So to discredit our departments or department heads by coming forth and just saying, this is how it's gonna affect the efficiencies of our department. I don't think we need to penalize them in any way. It was a suggestion of the older persons who made those motions, which have brought it forth here tonight. So I like to leave any idea that the department is not being a team player, not working with the confines of this budget. They were only asked to do what we were told them to do. Second of all, I don't think it's fair to compare each department's budget to each other, comparing apples to apples. If that's the case, we would have an easy answer and that would be every department would get the same amount of money and they would have to do what's necessary with that. That would be easy, but we all can recognize that each department is different and our priorities are different. And maybe it's just me that I have a different philosophy in government and business, but I don't feel that we have to resort to tactics of shock value, strong arming our unions. I still have faith in the system. I don't believe that this is the correct forum in which we need to tell our unions to point fingers and say, you better work with us. That's what salary and grievance for. If we do this, what we can end up doing and seeing is we can move it into arbitration. Look at our budgets, justify them accordingly. We don't need to resort to shock tactics. So I will be supporting the 1.5 increase. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Clayudas. Thank you, Your Honor. I'm hearing some great discussion, great comments. I think that we have to work together on this and I believe departments have worked hard. I agree public works, it's taking a hit of 28% according to the calculations I have in front of me, which is a big chunk out of a budget. It's over a quarter of their budget is being cut by this move to have no increase in taxes. They are working hard at it and they are going to do the best they can. It is also an element of public safety, as Alderman Susha mentioned, are the condition of our streets, the condition of structures in our city that they are safe and public works is going to try to do this best. And I would ask that we all work together for not ruining any department on its own during the new budget year and leaving them saying good luck with what you have. We're gonna work together. We have many qualified department heads who can help departments, I think manage their money, the spending and work together on this so that we come out together as a team. And I give all faith in Rich Gebhardt, the finance director, he's done a great job in guiding us in this. He's swallowing a bitter pill too and not having an increase but he feels as if, let's get on with it. Let's get going and let's see what we can do. I believe we're better than this. I think we have a lot of talent and we can do this with no increase. Thank you, Alderman Claymus. Okay, we're going to call the roll on the motion to increase the police budget by 1.5%. Before I do that though, I want to just say a few words. And this is important to me because I don't want anyone to believe that when somebody calls a police department, someone won't be there to respond. There will always be someone there to respond because if there isn't, someone's going to have to deal with me as the executive. Someone's going to have to deal with me. There will always be somebody responding to the people of Sheboygan just because the budget is not increased by 1.5% and we can minimize that in any way we want to rationalize it and justify it in any way. Does not mean that we are whipping or doing anything contrary to the police department or that we're against the police department. My position has been and will continue to be that we treat every department fair and equitably. Are they different? Sure, but not so much different that we have to give one department more money than the other departments because everybody has taken a hit. Everybody came in, took their hit and said, let's go. This budget is important to this council as being a responsive budget to the citizens of Sheboygan. If you hold it dear in that respect, you'll vote this motion down. Call it roll, please. And this is an amendment to the police budget by 1.5% to be placed in the salary line item. Correct. That was the motion. Serta. Aye. Hannah. Aye. Kittleson. Aye. Clayunas. No. Manny. No. Meyer. No. Montemay or? No. Radke. No. Ryan. Verhasselt. No. Boran. No. Berg. Aye. Six-eyes, eight-nodes. Motion fails. You need eight votes. Nine votes. To pass. To pass. It failed. The amendment failed. The amendment failed. Now we're going to vote on the resolution, the motion to put the resolution upon its passage. 15, 88. You got me. Pardon me? You got me. All of them are in the way. Thank you, Your Honor. I would like to amend resolution 15, 88 to add $98,000 in the Fire Department budget and reinstate two positions. Two positions per. Well, $90,000 would reinstate two positions in the Fire Department. They already have it, two positions. So I apologize. I'm just reading what's here. So I would add to $90,000. Because it was not approved what a public protection safety recommended. The public, you mean when the Fire Department came and asked for those two positions? Those two positions were dealt with by finance, and they're funded now. All right. Yes. Then I apologize. OK. Thank you. OK. Alderman Susha. Thank you, Your Honor. I just wanted to thank the mayor, thank Rich Gephart, and thank the department heads and the Alderman for working together to come in for a 0% increase. I think this is a major, major accomplishment. Just so the citizens know that by doing this, there was approximately $2 million that was cut out of the original request. And I think that that says a lot for this current administration. I think we're moving in the right direction. And I just wanted to thank everybody for cooperating and finally giving the taxpayers a break. Thank you. Thank you, Alderman Susha. Alderman Bourne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was just going to explain to Alderman Vander, really, what we did in finance to maintain those two positions on the fire department. But you've already taken care of it. Thank you. Thank you. One more. Alderman Mediwell. Thank you, Your Honor. I just wanted to state that I respect everybody's position in this room. And I respect the people who stuck to their guns and said that they would stick with 0% and stuck with it. And also, I respect you for your position, Your Honor. And in the beginning, I said I'd take a look at it and I would try to stick to 0% and obviously, from my vote before, I thought that maybe we shouldn't. And I really agreed with Alderman Manny what he had to say before. And I kind of feel the same way when I'm always voting for increases by hate-paying taxes. But sometimes I just see that this department or that department, it deserves to be a priority. So thank you. We do have one thing that we need to do. Rick, would you like to explain it? Alderman Hanna. Pardon me? Yes. Alderman Hanna. We'll just need a motion to approve the Finance Committee recommendations to be included in 1588. I'd make a motion that we approve the Finance Committee recommendations for inclusion in 15-88. Motion in second. Any discussion on that? Please call the roll. Hanna. Kittleson. Cleonis. Manny. Meyer. Montemayor. Ratke. Ryan. Sushia. Vanderweel. Berhasselt. Boran. Berg. And Serta. 13 ayes, 1 no. Motion carries. No. I don't think so. What do you need? We need to have a motion to pass the resolution. But I thought you meant something else. No. OK. President Berg, a motion to pass the resolution is amended. Thank you, Rod. I would move past the resolutions as amended. Is there a second to that? Second. Any discussion on that? There being none, please call the roll. Kittleson. Cleonis. Manny. Meyer. Montemayor. Ratke. Ryan. Thank you. Sushia. Vanderweel. Berhasselt. Boran. Berg. Serta. And Hanna. 12 ayes, 2 noes. Motion carries. Motion to second to adjourn. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Stand to adjourn. Thank you very much. All in favour?