 good after this here here present yes I thank you thank you Mr. Mayor for McDowell South Carolina. Gracious Creator for your loving kindness, for your tender mercy that showers each of us every day. Life, health, and strength for the simple ability to get up this morning. It's not our doing but yet your doing. Allow us to sense your spirit. Naunt us with your guidance as we push forward to set a fiscal year. Touch us individually and yet collectively reminding us that it's not us but it's you Lord. For your grace and your mercy. For all of the graduating seniors we pray blessings upon each of them as they move forward in their respective careers. We ask it. We claim it. In the mighty and precious name of him who gives us grace. Thank you Mayor Rick and then for pulling us all together and rallying us in the spirit of getting this done over the next budget workshop. We are important at this point that today we're going to focus on your primarily and you probably through some of the general funds for the upcoming budget workshops that Mayor Rick and then we really do need the time to tell you that I have met with every single one of them with our team and we have done the work and I feel like we are out as good as we are going to get on some already in the budget. But with that said, our best attempt because I've heard you say what your strategic priorities are. I've heard you say where we need to attempt to use contract labor for example. I think you have done a pretty good job of attempting to do that. But it's a general fund about it. I guess I'm saying I had to say I think at this point no individual conversations with you all with your suggestions. I'll always take them but I feel like y'all need to be around. That's what's going on. A lot of committee work going on too is great. But again, every hour of every work that we're in to take care of the committee or the budget and then their committee meeting schedule. Yeah, it's, Mayor, we can, yeah that's fine, we can do that. There one of the subject matters we talked about that we sort of consensually agreed that we not break it. So the two areas I think we've got amply enough time. Of all the time that we have this month, luckily we have five Tuesdays so that helps. We'll just wait until, after we're done, the schedule of another administration will be great. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. And so we'll get started with you today with a little bit of overview. Missy will come for it for that. Then we're going to quickly hand off to Jeff and Clint and Brink and I'll chime in as necessary. One of the things, not so much what the funds we're talking about today, but as we move into the budget discussions next week and thereafter, we remember the schedule and we'll go over the schedule again at the end, but we have to advertise the budget. A bottom line number we never advertise more than that by the 23rd, which means we were putting it in the paper to be noticed by the 19th. So again, you all that are newer to this will understand it's more like, you know, the bus is there but we're going to be moving a little around in the seats on the bus, even as we're advertising the budget. That's just kind of how that typically works but we'll talk you through it. Missy. Thank you, Miss Wilson. Mayor and Council, it's good to see you all today. We're glad to be here and be at the point of discussing the proposed budget with you. As Miss Wilson mentioned, we're going to move through a couple of different topics and a couple of different items today. We have a lot of material to cover. So we're looking forward to some brisk conversations. The first part we really wanted to overview a little bit and is highlighted in the memo that you received, just how we developed the budget and a lot of what we're working through is Miss Wilson's mentioned. We've been adapting and adjusting and flexing to changing priorities. New folks that are here and bringing folks trying to help share as much information as possible. So everyone has a little bit of a base understanding about what makes up the city's budget and what makes up our departments. The services provide and the cost to provide those services. The budget that's before you today and the budgets that are coming for you at this point do not include any rate increases nor any fee increases. So everything is based on existing rate schedules. Of course, our goal is always to meet city council strategic outcome priorities. Those that have recently been adopted or are being adopted by city council have been certainly on our minds and things that we are working towards and focusing on and look forward in the coming years to be able to be even more demonstrative of how our budget and how our work meets those objectives and works towards those strategic outcomes. We did work with departments on starting from a zero based outcome in terms of looking at building their budgets from the ground up. What does it mean to provide the services that they are responsible for providing as well as meeting those strategic objectives? Of course, a big impact on this year's budget again is staffing and hiring capacity in terms of both operating with existing staffing as well as meeting those hiring goals that many of our departments are achieving and with the work that you all have done to help with regards to adjusting our starting salaries or minimum salaries rather up to the $14.14 an hour rate. You'll certainly see that affected in some of the department's budgets going forward but also to what that does in terms of our projections and ability to hire as well as our other efforts to promote and advertise vacancies. Of course we always make sure that we keep in mind any prior commitments that we have in prior years in terms of new operations or expanding services and keep those in the budget as well. And of course as we all know where we are facing increased costs related to goods and services, supply chain issues of course that impact our budget development. Moving right on into the proposed water and sewer budget, we're going to do a little bit of interchange here but just to start out, first off as we mentioned the proposed water and sewer fund budget we have not proposed any rate increases. So the total projected revenue in the total proposed budget of course is $185 million which is about 1.35% over the current year budget. And of course we are projecting revenues based on just moderate growth of our system as well as just normal consumption levels. And with that we're going to turn over for Mr. Palin, Assistant City Manager Palin to talk about the rate study proposal. The review of the rate study rather. I apologize, I do not have the deep silky voice that Robert has and brings to our presentations but I do have some good news though so that'll be the offset. Lots of good point. Well we'll bring Robert back and y'all will hear the difference or maybe we'll get him on a Zoom call sometime so y'all can. However, his firm Black and Beach did work with staff to put together the rate study. So what we took a look at is our, we always have our base case financial plan which would be the current year. So in the current year what we're looking at is still a $40 million CIP that would be enacted. Years two, three, four and five in this study will then show a growth back up to $120 million of CIP. I'll remind, well it's not a reminder so I got to remember or this will be new. So we're going to show y'all all five years here. This would have been in the handouts on Friday that were emailed out to you. It'll be here and I can, we can provide a better copy of everything as well. I'm sorry. The email from Friday night. So we will print those out then. This information that's up here today was also part of that. So this will be the rate study. So in the rate study, we're showing you five years but the budget that we're going to be improving. I don't love the quiet over the weekend. I just thought everyone agreed to everything. Exactly. After we stay here today. It's in front of them now I don't know. Most of it's going to be part of, but I really want to point out the rate study for the 206 and 207. It's for informational purposes so you can see what the future looks like potentially. But as a reminder, as a reminder, we update that every year. Okay, so I can't point. So some of the things that we take a look at, I've mentioned this year will be the 40 million. It'll be $120 million CIP each year going forward. As we go through this briefly, I'll point out some of the important, I'll say, statistics that we look at each year. Water and sewer systems nationwide have certain. So get to see if it's going to show it on this. I may not have it on this sheet. It's on everything that went out on Friday. And I'll email everything out to y'all. It's right in front of you. It may not show them. Okay, it's not going to show it up here, the 120. 120 is what starts in 2024. So we'll hand those out. But in 2023, we're looking at only spending 40 million on CIP. The top here under 2023, we have listed total expected revenues. This is based upon what was budgeted last year, what the expectations are for the current year. And staff worked with Robert Chambers and they've come up with their expected revenues for the current year. So you'll see lines one and two total up for our total revenue expectations. On line four, we have a 0% increase, so we're not adding any additional revenue from an increase. Line five is, or I'm sorry, line 10 is your total adjustments to revenue. So within that number, that's where you have other tap fees, expansion fees, return check fees, also any growth from any of our current customers. We do have a project out there. Interest earnings would be in that number as well. Line 10. Okay, so cash will be reflected when we talk about the capital side. This will just be on the operational side. So we calculate any cash that we have left over at the end of this year. That'll be what goes towards part of that 40 million CIP. Yes, sir. So the number is still right around 16 million. But that's the entire system right now. We're pulling together to take a look at how much of that is remaining from the entire program, how much of that is penalties and charges. That basically hit our systems financials more this past year than it did in the current because we're still trying to collect it from the prior year. The collections that we bring on that in through that, and we've been talking with the mayor, and we're taking a look at a program to try to encourage those collections. We'll actually add cash to the system into our bottom line. Yes, sir. So if we bring in between now and any time, I'll just say between now and December, if $5 million comes in, we can adjust the CIP. Changes on that though we'll be bringing back to y'all to talk to about. But until we actually see a change in that number, we just don't have it recognized yet. After revenues, we have our operating expense for the system. That gives us our net revenue after operations. Line 14 is the outstanding debt service. And unfortunately, y'all don't have all the schedules because it went out Friday as well. So the debt service schedules. Oh, okay. So there's a complete breakdown in there of every bond issue that we have in what's outstanding in both principal and interest, what years it pays. And later on today, we're also just going to show you a summary for each fund of that debt service. So existing debt service is $45 million. We still have to issue that $89 million bond. We will not be issuing that until this fall when we do that. Our estimate for the interest cost for the year would be the $2,948 that is in line 15. So it gives us a total debt service of $48,309,000. That leaves, now we'll start talking about CIP. That leaves us with about $16 million that we will fund of that $40 million CIP out of operations. We have other transfers and expenditures that occur of $6.9 million. That's correct, that's correct. That's just out of the operation. That is only out of the current revenue, so out of the total $185 million. We have other capital outlay that occurs just throughout the system outside of our regular. When we say CIP, we're really talking about all the projects that are brought to y'all. Other capital that's purchased during the year, things, what would I use as an example? Vehicles, things like that, we don't use that out of our capital lease. That's paid directly out of water and sewer. So that's what those items there are. That's essentially everything. Listed out, yes. You're going to review later the projects that are in your project. Yes. We'll be here to talk all in front to go through all the projects. Yeah, we'll update that. Which one is the numbers that are issued following? The only difference is going to be that 2 million number right there. I would look at this and I'll send it all back out to y'all. What I have does not, but we can provide all of that. So in the past, when Robert is here, especially in years of an increase, he provides a lot more broken out detail because everyone wants to know why we're going to pay a 7 or 8, 9% increase. Bill's question about the project. Yes, sir. Is it also going to show you that 80 million dollars is not going to come? The second question is, I see you have zero increase this year, 7.69, 7.72. Do you have any calculation if we did have an increase this year, what those would go down to? So that would, it would change. So if we had an increase this year, it would depend upon where we're doing a 40, 80, or 120 million dollar. I believe we can pull up those scenarios, but I can't provide that today. Robert usually shows us years ago you have to show a minimum amount of increase this three year in and out years. He initially provided showing a 120, an 80, and a 40. Since that time we have refined a lot of numbers, but we can get back with him to update the 80 and the 120 with the refined numbers and we can bring that back to him. And then it will reflect the increases or the changes going through years two through five. So you all should be following what's in your PowerPoint. The information we sent Friday also had it, but they just, it's just very basic changes that occurred since Friday. Y'all have it. You have the most updated version in your PowerPoint. And then this, this one is just it broken down even more. That's the actual budget. This, these scenarios here, this is the, you know, with additional information. We got several weeks. Final decisions are not made today. Y'all know Missy's email address. Just send her everything. Yeah, what she just hand out is in the PowerPoint and there's an additional page that I have on there as well. So if you look at the very bottom line 21, you'll see debt service coverage ratio. So over the years that is an important number when we discuss issuing bonds with our rating agencies. We deal with standard and pours and moodies. We typically target 2.0. That doesn't mean actuals turn out to that. Some years there are more, some years there are less, but we try to target a 2.0. That is kind of the average number that's out there for most double A rated agencies. So we try to keep in that same frame. You'll see on here for 2023, the number is a little lower 1.72. I talk to our bankers often. I'm on that first page. It's on road 21. Just talking about the debt service coverage. It's at the bottom. However, at the end of the five year plan, it does get us back up to the 2.0. I should just, I'm looking at this and I'm seeing the escalation. This curious is to win. Yes, sir. The projected departure was around the year 2028. We believe with because of COVID and the request for more time that we've made, that probably pushes to 2030. But as we spoken about before, it really centers around stopping sanitary sewer overflows, executing the project, stopping the sanitary sewer overflows. And that will dictate really when we could ultimately get rid of it. Okay, let me ask you a different way then. At what point do we, or do we ever reach a point where we're not borrowing this much money? Ongoing and ongoing and ongoing. So I think what you see with the $120 million capital spend is the need to play a little bit of catch up for decades of work that needs to be done to replace aging infrastructure. And so as long as we've got that consent decree hanging and those requirements, that we're going to have an escalated spend, when that is removed, I would envision that $120 would be able to drop down to some degree. Now thinking about the time value of money, $120 may not mean the same thing 10 years from now that it does now. Okay, but I mean here's, you know, on a maintenance, when you get to a maintenance cap X position, will it continually be almost 80% of revenue? Hopefully not, but I think you'll, you're going to continue to see us as we unwind the consent decree. We're going to need to step up a little bit of investment in the water system and the drinking water system, replacing aging infrastructure there. So I think you're... I mean, I think we all understand it. Looking forward, 7% plus percent rate increases just ain't, it's not sustainable. I mean, so what happens? Well, we review our financials every year. We do the rate study every year. Jeff, I don't want to speak out of turn. In general, those numbers come back. The financial performance is better than the projection, but you never know for sure. And I mean... We weren't in the sewer business. And if we didn't have a consent decree hanging over our head that's mandating... No, that's why I'm asking the question. I mean, at some point you've got to bring this thing to an end or something, because I mean, where is the light? I would encourage you, before we finish this process, to come back with a little bit longer-term plan so we get a feel for when we're out of this consent decree deal and can move away from even projecting these type rate increases. I mean, this is an issue. I mean, you never get to a point where you don't have to have rate increases because of the increases of everything going into the system. It costs the pipe, it costs the people, it costs the borrowing money. And there's a good reason why we borrow money for a utility system. Howard, you understand. Let me give you a couple of things for what it's worth. Teach me, teach me. Number one, 7% is not sustainable, period. You're going to raise the water rate increases 7%. I mean, you're compounding that thing and it ain't pretty. Number two, if we can grow our economy here and get new investment and more water usage, that will do it. Well, when you're not growing your economy and you're having to raise the level on just the same people every year to cover your maintenance costs, you're correct. It goes up. So, I mean, I'm just telling you, this right here- I'm thinking our utilities- We are growing our utilities. Look at what we're going to Wednesday. When we go out to- Is it Wednesday? We go out to White Claw? That's a pretty big utility user out there. They're a fantastic customer. I think we're growing our utilities. Is that budgeted in here? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So, when we're talking about a revenue increase of next year of- or between 23 and- I don't have 22, so. I mean, what's the water bill for White Claw? So- It should be a million or more a year, right? Oh, yes, sir. They projected a million dollars a month water- That's a 12 million dollars. But it's- We're not seeing that. So, we've had to- Is it six? As they asked for it. So, right now, we're probably looking at about two-and-a-half million a year. We think that's going to grow it to three-and-a-half or four million a year. So, if I look at 22's projected revenue, it would be three million dollars less than what you've got here, probably. Yes, sir. I think so. I think that's correct. It's the other point to- Well, then I would just take that and say to Howard in a nice way that- That's why we've got to recruit more. Well, I agree with you. I'm all for recruiting. We've got to run the system that we've got. In terms of just rate increases- I don't know what you're saying, Howard. This will be the second year out of three where we will not have a rate increase. So, that speaks a little bit slower, more incremental, but that's just a data point for you. Two out of three, we would not have had a rate increase. I understand. Just want to be on the record as we go through this thing that- that those are going to be real problematic going forward. They would be smaller if we could have a little one this year. So, on some of that, just looking at least through the first five years, we do start to increase the amount of cash and less bonds. Let's see if y'all go to the handout. If you go to, there's a page called Sources and Uses. This would just be on the four-page handout that Missy handed y'all last. Should say Combined Systems Sources and Uses. And if you see that under 2023, the transfer in from the operating, there's the 16 million, and that's what we reflected on the screen up here. And then using cash out of the system is 24 million. And then that's paying for the entire 40 million of the CIP. Over the years, 24, 2025, 2026 and 2027, you'll see total CIP there is 120 million. But you'll also notice now, I need everyone to remember these are estimates going forward or projections. So, when me or Robert or Clint or someone else is talking to y'all next year, they'll always be in adjustment to some degree on these. But ideally in 2024, we'll be utilizing more cash, which means we'll issue less bonds. By the time we reach 2027, we'll be ideally looking at spending 43 million out of cash. You know, it's not huge increases, but over time, those start to move that way. Yeah. Yes, sir. Of course, I've got to ask this question. Go back to your 2023 with the CIP of 40 million. Yes, sir. That's correct. No increase. 2024 represents 7.69, 120. Reading that right, 120 million CIP. Yes, sir. All right. Let's ask the obvious question. In a rating creed, of course, gives me some hope. I live for our citizens. We've not had a rating creed in how many years. We did have one this past year of 5.02% in the year before we had zero. How does that holistically affect the residents? I know it's hard to answer that question, but I think we've got to be sensitive enough to know that there are persons now struggling with that very issue of water increase. Somewhere down the road, and I think Robert, he coming today or tomorrow, whenever. No, sir. All right. We all missing Robert. Yeah. I'm missing Robert. Because I need to know. I need to know. I need to know how is that going to exponentially affect our residents and particularly our constituents. That's an issue for us. That's been an issue that we've talked about for years. I shouldn't say we've talked about it for years, but there has always not been a common sheet of paper that all of us signed off for. Will we get to that? So let me answer it this way, and then you tell me if I've answered it. So in the past, when we've had a rating creed, Robert has brought and showed y'all an example of the bill. And we've taken the average bills and we put a value out there. In addition to that, customer service staff has had a, didn't we have a modeling, a sample bill online that people could go to and put a number in. So it would show you the effect on your bill. So we did not show that this year because we're showing you a zero increase for right now. When we do the updates next year. Yes. When we do the updates in future years, if there's rating creases, then we would bring and show you the changes in those bills. Now, I'm very comfortable with that. And for Santa folks, you know, there will not be a rating creed in 2023, but down the road, and I think perhaps the tale is getting at that. We cannot afford in 2024 to raise rates and folk. We're having difficulty paying that crap. I'm sorry. Paying it now. And if we don't do that, then we've got to really have genuine on the table conversation about rate increase. Because we're looking at a 120 mil CIP in 2024. And that's going to hurt our citizens. No question about it. Can I ask just a clarifying question? What is the difference between the operating revenue and operating funding and those two numbers? When we're looking at what adds up to become the CIP funding. That's a good question. Operating revenue, that 16 million is 16 million that's actually generated in the current year's revenue structure. And then the 24 million, Robert calls that the operating fund. In general, we may just call it the fund balance, but that's cash. Like still there out there. And so we're bringing that in. Well, it's going to be. I'm sorry. Sorry, I just wanted to clarify. So that's essentially what Joe was saying, the cash that's already there that we're then moving forward. That's correct. Okay. And just for clarification, as Robert and them are doing rate studies, are they accounting for the empty positions that we have? Are they accounting for potential cash that's being transferred out? How are they looking at that rate structure as well? I mean, I think understanding a little bit about those details because we have had significant positions empty in that. And that, you know, depending on how we move forward will also be reflective. So a lot of what you brought it would affect the operating expense back on the prior page, the 101 million dollars. So many of the changes that Frank and Clint talked to you all about. I don't know if that's today. Might have put them on spot. But a lot of the changes as y'all have been meeting and discussing the things that they're working on reflected in 2023. These are scenarios. Oh, even though Robert isn't here today, and we'll potentially get him. And I mean, I'm not sure that we'll have Robert budget for this year, but these are just scenarios as we know. Oh, yeah. Make sure we're accounting for stuff because we need to make sure we're seeing it all. Yeah. As you see something shown in 2024 is an increase. You're not approving that. I didn't mention that early on in the beginning. So maybe Robert says it differently than me, but we're only our focus is 2023. These are very good questions though about what happens long term. But also remind when we do a rate study update every single year so we can take the most recent actuals and then project them forward. Well, I certainly don't want to be presumptuous, not at all. But I also think that it's important for us to understand that 2023 is zero. And that's with a CIP of 40 million. 2024 represents 120 million CIP. It's going to affect some folks. And of course, that's where I am right now. I don't want to be presumptuous enough to say that when I meet with a community, water rates are down. 2024 is going to be the advent of what takes place the next four years. And we need to be old enough to say I supported that and I'm with that. I think Robert's input as it relates to rates is very important. We get and I'm sorry for that. No, we just we got a lot to cover today and I want to make sure we get it because it's going to be very important for us to get through today because there's going to be a lot more detail over the next couple of weeks. So can I add one more thing on this page and then we'll move on. I'll call this the positive spin on a few things. So we're very focused and Councilman asked a question about other revenue and also talked about economic growth. That number can have a huge impact on what next year's rate increase ends up being. We have a very what I'll call conservative number on growth from our industry in next year's number. If we see growth from white claw, maybe the juice and they may be maxed out and some of the others that number will actually go up, which means the amount that we have to see revenues increase will go down. We did see a substantial impact. I can't remember. I'll go back and look, but we saw a substantial impact a few years ago when you she came online and helped lower it. So that has the potential to offset it next year on that number. Another reason why it's important for us to do the updates because we'll know when we're sitting here talking to you this time next year how much more they've grown and do we have new industry that's come in and adding to the bottom line. Let me ask you something. Just residential growth out in the county in the northeast towards lower Richland. Is that moving the meter at all that you can tell? I'm going to say. We're just talking industry here. He's going to give you guidance. If that comes later, you can dive into more detail then. No, sir, it is. I think we have probably reflected that very conservatively in our growth. I think 1% customer growth is what we bake in for each year. We're seeing a lot better growth in that. These last few months, we don't want to be overly aggressive because there could be a downturn in that growth. So we've continued with that same projection throughout of the 1%. For the residential residential. I would add any growth that occurs and has occurred and reflects. So when we update the numbers next year, any of the past growth, we, Robert and me, Missy staff, we work on giving them the actuals so that that type of growth will reflect from anything that occurred. Because we have gone out, probably say a little conservative at 1%. Is that what we're using now? But if we come up short, then y'all are. One of the last parts for me to talk to y'all about, often people talk about what's the total cash of the system. If you go to the, probably last page of the last handout they came to you, this is kind of a projected flow of funds throughout the whole system for 2023. The upcoming year, you'll see where we have $293 million. So that's kind of an estimate of where we'll be at the end of this year. So if you take a look in the CAFR or now called the ACFR, you're going to see a number. It's never going to tie directly to that, but if you take a look at your total cash throughout the balance sheet, it's going to be a number somewhere in that frame. What will be coming out of that will be the $24 million that we've talked about. They'll be going towards CIP. We'll be adding back into it the $6,625,000. That's actually coming out of operations. So that's a, that is a water and sewer accounting item. I would personally net that out and just say that's coming out of the current year's operations towards CIP, but it just gets moved, it gets moved around, but you'll be able to tie that back to this page out here. It gives you an idea. Excuse me, is it coming into water and sewer or coming out of water and sewer? So the $6,625,000 is coming into, that's still part of the operations. So that goes back into the fund balance. So you have an ending balance of $275,000. Throughout the industry, they like to say what's that standard of days on hand for cash versus operations. So that's 988 days. That is a very positive effect when we talk to the rating agencies. Rating agencies are always interested in what's the cash on hand. So that's going to be in the ballpark when we finish out and talk to them in the fall. They'll be pulling a number similar to this based upon our actual financials and how they end up this year. So the $275,000 is the cash on hand that you would report? Yes. Well, actually at the end of this year, it'd be closer to the $293,000. But then after during this upcoming year, you'll see the $24,000,000 going out, $6,000,000 coming in. So that nets out the $275,000. The 504 decided the minimum balance requirement is the number of days expressed in that. Yes, sir. So the 504 is really 138% of operating cash. So we've taken, and the question becomes, why do you talk about that number? So Brent Robertson spoke with you all several years ago looking at all of Moody's statistics of double A rated agencies. And we took a look at what's their typical cash on hand. And that number was at about 138%, 139%. So that would be the number we would want is the 140. So I will point out because everyone's going to say, we're ending balances much higher than the 140. So the one thing that isn't subtracted out is out of that $275,000 is all of our encumbrances and ongoing projects that are out there. When you take all of that out, including the projects that are coming out, then if you liquidated, had everything that went through, it's really more theoretical, you'd have $47,774. That is 171 days worth of cash. And the typical just industry standard not looking at it from whether you're a single way or a triple way is 180 days cash on hand. So the 171 keeps it close to that ballpark. And if you kind of flow forward to 2027, you see the target actually ends up getting right to about 180. And the construction fund is the same thing as the CFE? Yes. So we will have projects that have started several years ago that are ongoing. We have projects that were approved this past year and then projects that will be approved in the upcoming year. And then when you look at the more like byline, water and sewer operating fund, what number in this combined system matches with the breakdown of how each of these things are spend? And I'm looking at the fund 551 allocation. So that total budget, ultimately you see where it lines up to the $185 million on the fund 551. So it says proposed as 186.653. So there's not a number, but it's the one that says water and sewer operating fund 551 at the top. So under the way that translates to this combined cash system on the rate study is reflecting under probably the closest line would be line one, where it totals $185.8 million. I'm sorry, line 11. Yeah, I was like line one. Line 11. Then all the items below that, starting from line 12 through line 21, those all add back up to the hundred. That's the closest way to sort of translate those. Mr. Palin said that's all he has with the rate study. So unless you'll have some questions for him, we'll proceed through the last of your discussion. We will reserve the right to question the witness in the future. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes, sir, I do think we anticipate some additional conversations. Robert's still around, so yes. No, sir, but there's no rate proposals. There's no rate increases being proposed, so he was not anticipating to be presenting. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And of course these scenarios will change by then. Right. Since you're just proposing, since today you're just, for this budget purposes you are only looking at the 2023. He's been working with Robert, but the staff has just put this together based on his feedback. It was really us giving him feedback that, you know, if he didn't anticipate there would be a summit or a rate increase. Robert probably pushed it back. I don't know if you would have wanted to hear Robert right now to be honest with you, but we will get Robert up. So once we've discussed the rates or the revenues that make up the water and sewer system, expenditure wise, of course, the proposed budgets for the operating portion of the budget's departments, they represent 104 million. That's about a two and a half million dollar increase of a current year budget. The focus of their budget development, this would be reflective of the departments that make up the operating budgets, primarily the largest, of course, being utilities. Utilities budget reflects the operations of two water plants or wastewater plants. Our wastewater plant, plus our collection line and distribution lines, that means the water and sewer line, maintenance of the water and sewer lines, as well as meter rating and other functions. And you said the departments that make up this budget is what utility public works? Engineering. Those are by far the largest. Of course, we also have customer care as included in here. GIS functions. Some general government includes our finance, the finance folks that are charged proportionately to water and sewer. Public safety. Public safety is actually the, that's the security that is provided at the water maintenance, water plants, the two water plants, the wastewater plant, and the public works facilities. They are actually managed, they're contract, they're managed by the police department, so it's under public safety. And economic development. Economic development is out of our water and sewer fund. The economic development department. No, it's not the total public works budget. I'm sorry, that's correct. Thank you, sir. It reflects the division that is charged to water and sewer out of public works is street divisions. It refers to the folks that are patching the repairs once water and sewer is made their repairs. That's less than previous years, correct? Yes. And the biggest contract use? There are more contract use in the utility, reflected in the utility budget. Public works, you're seeing a reduction there in part because of some capital outlays and vehicle equipment that they didn't need to purchase this year. And the general government and the transfers to other funds were exactly what now? So general government includes administrative functions. Can you just give the detail on some detail? In the packet that you receive, there's some information regarding administration, customer care, finance, and GIS management as well as general services. Those are the, those would make up general government. We just had those collapsed for reporting purposes. When I look at this where it says the assistant city manager's office, that's a general government expense. Yes, sir. It's just a collapse for the purposes here. Of course, and then debt service is 48 million and Mr. Palin again will come back up soon and go through a debt service schedule. And we'll talk through the water and sewer debt program. I was going to say, Mr. Sheila, right. We're going to be bringing in department heads. Can I just ask one more, one more question about the transfers or just just a general question. On specific project cost. Like I say, if I looked at Bull Street, for example, historical, there were monies taken out of water and sewer, I guess to put water and sewer lines in. All right. When you talk about the CIP cost here, is that exclusively for water and sewer lines? Yes, sir. Does that include other projects outside of specifically water and sewer? Absolutely. It is water and sewer projects specifically. Mr. Sheila will go through this coming year's CIP list specifically with water projects and wastewater projects. And we have a historical list. How about projects outside of specifically water and sewer? We also have a stormwater fund. You'll see the stormwater projects in the stormwater fund. There are no parking. So no other projects outside of water and sewer would be in the water and sewer CIP. So in a discussion, this was a general discussion, somebody that had at one point in time, there was a mention about something on perhaps a shortage on another project somewhere that could be funded out of water and sewer. There's none of that in this. The only time that would happen is right. And of course, the only time, if there was a shortage on a water and sewer project, it would be funded by another water. So just a quick overview about some of the priorities that we have in terms of our operating budgets and some of the things that we are looking to do this coming year. And I'm going to have Frank come up and speak specifically and share a few things about utility operations. Because as you look at that breakdown, utility operations is the largest expenditure followed by debt service. So the overall operating budget, and I'll speak to customer care first. I think you know what we've done with our customer care center recently ramping up our hiring effort, not increasing staffing levels, but moving the staff to be working when the majority of the calls are coming in. And I hope you've seen through the use of the after hours answering service for more emergency calls and putting the resources during the day. I hope that each of you have seen a reduction in the frustrated customer calls that I can't get through. I can't get anybody to respond or answer. So I think Tiffany Latimer and her team have done an exceptional job of providing approaching best in class service for a call center. So we're really, really proud of that. And the statistics that we update you monthly would show that in terms of average call handling time. In engineering, we have actually collapsed five positions. A lot of our graduate level engineers that are coming out, our younger engineers, know how to do their own drafting work. So as they're designing something, a sidewalk or a water line or whatever. The old model when I went through engineering school is I would do the design calculations and hand it to a draft person. And they would do the AutoCAD work. Now the younger folks are doing their own. And so we don't need as many of those drafting positions. And so we've been able to kind of reposition and look at our staffing level and collapse five positions in engineering to be a little more efficient as we move forward. And then utility operations, obviously regulatory compliance, compliance with our consent decree of paramount importance for us. Maintaining water quality to our customers, making sure that they're not experienced discolored water, taste and odor, those sorts of things, very, very important. I'm going to let Frank talk about how he assessed the staffing levels in a couple of our different operating divisions that report through him. And some of the work that he's done where we've got areas of significant vacancies. And what we're asking for in this year's budget. And I'd be remiss if I didn't say thank you for letting us do some salary adjustments for our field staff. I think every one of them would say thank you very much. And the next time you see them, I hope they'll tell you thank you on a face-to-face basis because they are very, very appreciative of what you've done for them. Frank, will you speak a little bit about utility operations and then we'll talk about capital improvement? I would touch upon which I really appreciate Frank's diligence and put on, you know, just really sharpening that pencil with us to look at positions that we eliminated from 56 positions going into this budget process and looking at the use of the contractors. Right. And Council Mayor Ms. Wilson, thank you for your time today. As we've been discussing in preparation of this year's budget, we were looking for places to save money. So we literally pulled out the organizational charts for places like water distribution, wastewater maintenance, wastewater treatment plant and looked at positions that were vacant. Then it was kind of a thumbnail sketch. What do we reasonably think we can fill this year? And then what do we reasonably think would remain vacant this year? And by doing that, we were able to identify roughly 24 positions in water distribution that represents a 20% vacancy. We think that's going to save somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.3 million. That's what you're eliminating or that's what you think you can fill? I would note, those are the ones that we are not budgeting for this year, that we're going to anticipate being vacant this year. We're calling them authorized positions but not budgeted positions. I would very much like to keep them on the piece of paper for future reference because it's hard for me to recommend permanent staff reductions when we're having to turn right around and hire contractors to do work that we should be doing. But that's not a true statement. The part of the issue and the reason why we're talking about hiring contractors is because we're not being able to get the work done in a timely manner with staffing and without. So the charge was let's take what we do best and let's stay focused on that and fill the gaps where we're not performing. That's what I said, mate. What I'm saying is I can't recommend permanent reductions in staff when we're having to hire contractors to do the work that you would reasonably expect us to accomplish when you call us on the phone. Fixing a water main. We can't get there. We're having to hire a contractor to get there. I don't want to eliminate the positions permanently for the people who would fix that water main when we're having to hire somebody else to do the work. We're hoping that we'll gradually be able to hire people to do that work. We eliminated 56 positions. Yeah, I saw that. I think the question is. When we get to the budget next time, we'll evaluate it then. And if we need to add some positions back, positions, let me tell you. Yeah, I don't think that's the question. The question is, for me, is that the purpose of dividing where we are best and where we're not is also about a cost effectiveness, effectiveness and everything else, which hiring people, if you look at the overall scheme for certain positions and reoccurring work, does it make sense? And that was my point. Well, I know that till we get through a year. Mayor, we are going to identify what's the most cost effective way to do it. Can I raise my hand and be acknowledged in the proper manner, Mayor? Yes. Well, what I wanted to add to this discussion, too, is we have to understand how many of our small construction companies come out of the city as prior employees. So I do believe we need to make sure that we keep a good number of employees because I think that we just want to make sure that the industry doesn't become limited to a core group of people with no expansion. A lot of these folks get a lot of experience here at the city. They work here 10 years and they go and start other companies. I don't have a problem with that. But if we only let existing companies do this for an extended period of time, we're limiting our small local contractors who we then need to compete for work. So I'm looking at it from both ways. We don't want to totally eliminate these positions, not unless we see in the future that we don't have the capacity to do them. And I would like to add we are going to take a look at what's the most cost effective way to get this work done. I was presupposing in my statement that it's less expensive to do it with our folks than to hire a contractor. But we'll see. We'll see. We're going to develop that information. So anyway, we repeated this process and wastewater maintenance at the Metro wastewater plant. And we're able to identify some cost savings by not budgeting for some personnel positions this year. Any questions or concerns? All right, for example, if I'm looking at our vacancies as a March 30th and utility operations, we had 182 FTE vacant spots. So you're talking about reducing, we had a total of 450 budgeted, 268 filled, 182 vacant. So for the F23 budget, you're talking about 380. The particularly in water distribution and maintenance, the area where we identified some positions that we weren't going to fill, there are roughly 100 positions. We've got about 33 of those filled right now. We're saying that even if we do a great job hiring, we're not going to fill all 100 jobs. So we pulled 25 out of that hoping to add about 30 SMOD positions over the next year. I can get the organizational charts out. No, I'm just looking at the numbers, Frank. I mean, if we're down 182, total in the utility operations, budgeted 450 this year, you say you're going to reduce the total budget number by 56. You've got it from a total of 450 down to 394. Yes, sir. I kind of want to follow up on the mirror a little bit. I mean, if we're able to effectively contract stuff out, do you think it's to our advantage to hire up and do it internally? Is it cheaper? Is it better to have to pay for those folks all the time even if we don't need them? I believe so. Partly because, like I said, we're going to prove this. It's not just going to be Frank's opinion. We'll get the numbers. But my experience has been we can fix a broken water main or repair a fire hydrant for less money with our forces than we can to hire a contractor to do it. I'm also presupposing that we are going to have broken water mains going forward. There's going to be a steady supply. Well, if you could figure out how not to have them, I would be highly appreciative. I'll let you talk about the CIP again. But so that kind of factors into my belief, plus what I've seen at other utilities. You need to have a certain level of staffing. Oh, I'm just curious question. I mean, if we were down 182 folks and we've reduced the backlog from what, 7,000 down to 3,500 or so now? But my point is, then if you're able to cut it in half with 182 less people, why do we need to go back up to 130 more people? I mean, I'm not saying you get rid of air. I mean, you know how we hire all those folks. Yeah, I would be it seems like I mean, you know, Well, I would say in this climate, the chances of hiring all those people. But I understand I think your chances of hiring in this current climate are probably not as good as you think they are. My question is not chances of hiring is why are you hired? Because we think we can do it for less money than hiring a contractor. Ultimately, we think it will cost the city less money to do the work with our people. There are certain services, the calls in the middle of the night that we need to have a nucleus of folks there. The 33 that we got in water distribution, simply not enough. We know we need more. We need more bodies. We recognize we don't need as many that were on the books. So we're trimming back on that. We're asking for the budget to fund somewhere in between. If we can't fill, then we're going to have to use those funds to hire even more contractors to make sure the work gets done and to eat the backlog. So we've been employing the contractors to eat the backlog going from 7000 to 3500 was cleaning up a lot of work orders that just had not been closed. We didn't fix 3500 active leaks. I wish we would, but that's just not that that's cleaning up data as well coupled with fixing some active leaks. So that's very, very important. We also are increasing the funding in this budget for our contractors. So we've gone up on that base level of contracting use and then hoping that we can supplement add to our staff supplement with contractors and further eat into that backlog. That's how we solve that more immediate problem. And then we collect doubt on what is it costing that contractor and what is it costing us to pay that staff that crew fixing that leak but carrying that employee year round. We're capturing all those costs. So we've talked several times about are there ways that we can incentivize people who private contractors who are installing things and connecting things. To do the work that we normally send out to do to reduce perhaps a number of folks that we might need. Is any of that taken into account with it? I believe it is with water meter installations. You got to say you know it is. Okay. I ran a state agency when you say I believe it is that usually means it is. You know what I'm saying? It is. Yes, sir. We tried to think that way. I think we're in a circular conversation. Here we are. Okay. So the reason why is we were we eliminated. I was saying one more time. 56 positions. That's what we've done. And if you come back and you can prove your point Frank this time next year, then we're going to reevaluate it then. But but coming out the gate saying what I don't dispute with Frank is saying because expert along with Clint. But I think where we are right now. Is that we're going to try it this way this year. And then we're going to have the data to say what what's most cost effective and what how many more positions we need. This will send a recommend the council in next year's budget. We sounds good. It's not about. The circular nature of what we're saying to prove the point really because we were presenting your budget where we've eliminated 56 positions. We're going to lean into the contractors right now. And see how that works for us. Frank, when you all demonstrated city works to when Mr. Brennan and I. It showed it on a typical project you'd send out to do a repair of a 500 or whatever. And you would send the crew out that when the city works closed out that particular report showed you the total cost involved. The salaries the supplies and everything for that particular project. We have a similar thing for the private contractors. Can you compare. 500 replacement with a crew versus a 500 professional contract. Yes, sir. That's the information that we're developing. And we are trying as hard as we can to refine the contractor process to push that price down. They using city works. They we don't I don't think I think we record the work they do in city works so that it's captured for our mapping but we've got contracts in place with them. It's it's measured through contract. One more question just as a general question because. When you budget personnel costs to a department and this may be for the city manager. How are you accounting for the benefit cost. Are you just are you just charging the paycheck into it or are we charging the leave. We charge in the. We have to charge. That's what I'm saying. The percentage this year. I mean we've had the fact of health care costs going in that we think we can cover based off. You know funds that we. Saving so to speak but I don't know of Pam or. What's low. Can you share with us what the what the what the person with the percentage cost is. Thirty five thirty five. And in our budgeting we have a number of number of positions. You know annual rate and then our budget spreadsheet has all the overhead. Items broken out in different columns and it automatically fills in. To get the gross amount on the far end. The ones we said we weren't going to get. The B2B how do you want a B2B. Yeah we'll show it to you. It calculates it down to the penny. The budget that you see for personnel reflect both pay salaries. As well as the fringe cost. That's charting that the city page on that. Fringe escalator on that issue is a flat thirty five percent. No it's no it's per. Per associated cost so. BICA has a. The rate the rate for rate. Insurance I'm sorry excuse me rate for retirement. Which is running at this point I have not been told of a rate increase for. Retirement but sixteen and a half percent or somewhere in there. Ever there for state insurance means that retirement. We have a rate for health insurance. That could change like it could be like thirty seven percent. Based on some of those rates changing it does there is. What makes up fringes summer flat fees and then summer percentages of the salary. Like FICA like FICA Medicare and then retirement or percentages of salary. And that that is an opportunity I think to talk about what makes up departments budgets. So every every employees budget every divisions budget for personnel. Includes their base salaries plus their fringes. Operating costs include services and supplies. And where where applicable it will include capital which would be capital outlays for vehicles. Or equipment those things that are our unit price of five thousand or above. But not not project related it's purely capital outlays. For city budgets primarily there's going to be vehicles. Sometimes some technology. Moving into the proposed stormwater fund the stormwater budget is at sixteen point one million dollars. Which is about a three percent increase over the current year budget. There is also no rate increase in this year's proposed stormwater budget. Several years ago in twenty sixteen city council that time adopted five years see a five year rate plan. For stormwater rates it was suspended one year. We are also recommending to suspend it the fifth year would have been the fifth and final year this year. They give us a time to do some analysis on the current revenue. As well as our projects and other costs. Just as we do with our water and sewer system as well. So there is no rate increase enclosed enclosed in this year's budget. But we do have obviously CIP going forward. So there are still will be projects moving forward. We'll talk about that as well. So you will have to actually also vote on an ordinance. I believe looking over at our city attorney Teresa Knox to confirm. So you will have to do the same that you did two years ago when we suspended the rate. You'll have to vote on the ordinance again to suspend the rate. It is at this point we're not issuing any debt in this coming year. So the system is still generating revenues for both operations and a capital improvement program which we'll get into suspension. More than pay for. That's not a question I can answer or yes storm stormwater the stormwater program of course is only on stormwater is applied only on city customers. It's not charged to all of our water and sewer customers. It's just on city customers of course is it is a city city fee. And it funds the stormwater improvement program and the stormwater operations. Of course that again that five year plan was to address a 90 million dollar CIP over over a certain period of time. With that we'll talk a little bit bring Mr. Palin back up to talk about the cash balance of the stormwater fund. So these are numbers as of the end of March cash we had in the system is 33 million. We do have outstanding conferences most of that's capital projects ongoing a little bit of operating at least 14 million. We did issue a bond in 2018 as part of this plan so the proceeds remaining in that are 29 million. So total funds available are 44 million. That's what will help pay for parts of the 11 million dollar CIP in this year's budget. This cash number also is important as we update the rate study to see what we need to do to complete everything that was brought to y'all by Dana and Clint and Joey several years ago. That was a 93 million dollar overall list of projects were four years five years later. It might be not the right thing to just issue a bond based upon a study so old. So we want to take a look see where we're at. We potentially have generated more cash than what initially was in the initial study and we may be able to issue a much smaller bond to complete those projects. But that won't the bond will not be issued in the upcoming year. We will do the study this year and come back to y'all next year. Going forward with the stormwater fund the budget of course 16 million the operating budgets that make up stormwater again include public works and engineering. The public works division in this case again is streets and storm drains. The folks that actually do the maintenance side of the storm drain system and of course some some in house construction projects. The engineering of course is for the engine portion of engineering that is related to designing our stormwater CIP debt services included at roughly two and a half million. And transfers out the largest portion of that transfer out is for five million dollars of the total transfers out is five point seven with five point one of that going for the stormwater improvement program this coming year. That's the cash of the system. That means the as Mr. Palin's already mentioned that is referencing the cash generated from this year's budget going into the improvement program. Any questions about water and sewer or stormwater operating funds. And the five sixty to the general fund. No change in part. How was that. What is that used for. Is that also used for water and sewer related no right. Now that's the transfer that's the indirect cost transfer to the general fund. That represents the cost of services that the general fund provides to the water to the water and sewer system or in this case the stormwater system just as though it were like a overhead. Missy and this might be a rank or client question. Do we ever split CIP project funding with the county since lots of dent holes financially the layout of money for stormwater. Is there any working together on these larger stormwater system projects. Belvedere Yorkshire some of those areas where the lines of responsibility are less clear. We have been working together to fund those types of improvements. And if it's within the city once the improvements are made then we take over for operation. Would you say that the county's commitment to. Increasing their stormwater infrastructure. I mean how would you gauge that. It's better and we're coming around and I think we're working together much better. Maybe in some past years and so and those are two perfect examples to work together to solve problems for our constituents that are both in the city. Increasing our annexation rate might help with our stormwater issues down the road. Potentially. So we've talked about a forty million dollar capital improvement program I wanted to answer just a couple of questions before we get into that that were. Loaded around Frank and I were chatting Reverend McDowell when you ask about. You know what's the relative rate increase in future years that you're not voting on or not implementing but. On an inside city customer of five percent rate increase for a monthly average bill of fifty dollars would be two dollars and fifty some month. So your average customer between fifty and sixty dollars you're looking at two dollars and fifty cent at three dollars a month. If the city implemented a five percent increase on water and sewer. So that gives you some idea of the magnitude we're talking about there. Okay. Frank was going to mention this and we got side track a little bit. You know inflation and our cost of chemicals is really has been a driver in terms of our own in budget as well. When we're making water at our water treatment plants are treating waste. There are three big components to our cost. It's our people and we're required to have license certified operators there twenty four seven three sixty five so we do. It's the power to run the equipment and pump the water and it's the treating compounds and those have gone up in cost. Unbelievable amount we've seen twenty twenty five percent rate increases on chlorine which is our primary disinfectant that we have to have so. We're trying to absorb that and not pass that through but that's a big a big driver for our own in budget but. So. So I'd say in roughly similar budgets and I'd say that the chemical budget is probably twenty to twenty five percent of that total operating budget men the ballpark there Frank. Well just those are some of the things that are driving what we're doing in terms of trying to control cost and but some of these things we are out of our control. The some of you may have been surprised with a zero proposal for a zero rate increase this year. Some may be pleasantly surprised with that but there are a couple of things that allowed us to be in a position to be able to do that. So I wanted to speak to that first and set the table. The first thing is our compliance stance with our consent decree. We talk about that a lot. It's a federal consent decree. We have to comply with it. We're in compliance with it. We have asked EPA or in the process of quantifying a request for more time to comply with the consent decree because of covid because of what it's done to us financially. What is done to us staffing wise what it's done to the cost of things. All of those factors combined we're making our case now and hoping and believe we're going to get some more time. But I can't come to you and say we're going to have certain impact from the consent decree and the ramifications are X Y and Z. If I don't know what that time extension is going to be. So we're working very hard to try to get an answer out of EPA on how much time or what extra time are we going to get because of covid. Time is very valuable because that a lot of our spend a lot of our capital is tied to that consent decree into that time. We're trying to get every minute of extra time that we can. So that's important. And without that answer it's hard for us to come forward with a huge capital spend projects that we know we need to do. But we can't say we've got to do them by X date. Yes sir we have gone ahead and put our head in the news for our major infrastructure rehabilitation projects. That is that analogy. But but we have committed to dates that projects that have to be done within three five or seven years. We're evaluating the system the smaller lines 15 inches and below and are coming up with those dates that will propose to EPA and they will approve. And then we have to live by those dates and their major fines if we don't do those projects by those dates. We're ahead of the game a little bit right now for those the IRR the infrastructure rehabilitation projects. So we've got a little bit of float in there. If we get some covid time that's going to really help us spread that spend out a little bit more for the supplemental. Maybe you know won't be as much float once that's approved. We start approaching the 2028 2030 time frame will have to spend those dollars. We know those things have to be done those projects have to be executed. There are also projects that are associated with capacity limitations. So if our hydraulic modeling or our sanitary sewer overflow history shows you've got a problem at this point in your collection system you're spilling sewer continually or repeatedly here. We are limited to the amount of development that can happen in those areas they become capacity limited. We don't have areas right now where we have capacity limitations but we have areas that are threatened and you'll see a slide on that in a moment that if we don't execute projects within a certain date. I can't give you that date certain because I don't know how much extra time we're going to get because of the covid force major. So it's really really important. The other piece that's important is there's eight to nine hundred million dollars of state allocated money through that. The ARPA that's floating out there that will be administered through the rural infrastructure authority. We will be able to apply for infrastructure grants for water and sewer. It's eight to nine hundred million dollars for water and sewer infrastructure and some for stormwater. We'll be able to apply for those projects. The awards will be ten million dollars per project. We have built that in one project award into our forty million dollar CIP. Assuming that we get one project and it's capped at ten million dollars. We are very very hopeful in our lobbying very very hard that a utility the size of Columbia out of a sense of fairness and the number of the population that we serve. We should get much more than ten million dollars if folks across the river and other parts of the state that have much smaller utilities are getting ten million dollars. If you look at it on a population basis we should be getting fifty million dollars. If we are successful with that request that's another infusion of capital. We just don't know that that bill hasn't been finalized yet the governor hasn't signed it yet but that's another opportunity to increase potentially another forty million dollars or maybe more into our capital spend plan. So it's hard for us to ask for more and when we don't know that answer we're hoping to have that answer soon. We'll work with our friends at rural infrastructure authority and try to try to work to maximize the dollars that come to Columbia. Yes sir there's through the infrastructure bill there's going to be a lot more money in the state revolving loan fund where we could apply if we chose to for lower interest loans or low interest loans. Typically we've gone to the bond market and been successful but that's another avenue for us to borrow money. But this eight to nine hundred million is all grant. Yes sir it's grant and we want to maximize that opportunity. We also have the collection issue that y'all spoke about earlier. If we can collect on some of this bad debt that brings more cash into the system that allows us to invest more as well. So that's really really important that we get that cleaned up and we're starting to be more and more aggressive on collecting on that bad debt. And we'll be coming to you with a plan to try to collect on that maybe amnesty for late fees those sorts of things just spoke about that earlier. So there's a lot of different variables moving around and so we were asking for a pause on the rates of forty million dollars CIP. Let me get to the real crux of how do we want to spend that forty million. Yes sir. Yes sir. And that's a great question. No it's a great question. We have seen we believe the apex of the peak and it is coming down the last two months it's trending downward. We've been at that point before but we think with the new collection and cut off as we refine those policies we will continue to see that decline. We also believe that if we're able to do some sort of an amnesty and PR push and potentially waive late fees if you pay within a certain time period if you pay up completely within a certain time period that may we may be able to collect a good bit more. We have lowered the threshold of where of past due debt for us to cut your termination water service where every month we're dropping that down. Therefore a while it was if you didn't know fifteen hundred dollars we weren't going to cut your water off. We had to start with the big ones and work our way down. We're working our way down. We're able to answer the phone calls and put folks on payment plans now with how we've restructured customer care. So we're able to handle that influx of requests that are coming in. So we're being much more aggressive in disconnecting for nonpayment and getting those folks on a payment plan. When we put them on a six month or 12 month payment plan you don't see the numbers drop as far as quickly. But they do drop. But they do start dropping and if we do an amnesty program perhaps we'll see a big dent. It sounds like the benchmark that you're setting represents some real change in terms of numbers in its decrease in the number of collections. We're starting to see it but we've got a ways to go. But if we can collect that bad debt a good portion of that bad debt that really helps us in our cash position. Would you say other water utilities of our size regionally are having the same collection issue. I don't know if everybody took the path we did for our customers. Councilman we're rather unique in the path that we took. Everybody had to because the governor mandated it. We suspended disconnects two days before the governor's mandate. That was lifted I think in about 30 days. Most of the other utilities that I've talked with and within the state within three months had had gone back to normal practice. They said it was a painful couple weeks. But the elephant hadn't gotten so big by that point by us waiting almost a year. The problem got really big and we're trying to eat that thing strategically. So we're a little unique. At least in South Carolina I would say. And of course sitting those benchmark is going to help. Yes sir. Yes sir. Lowering those thresholds will be. Thank you sir. I just want to help council get there. But information and the slide. But it may be easier for them to see towards the end of your packet where it says proposed capital improvement program. Those slides line up with what's in their packet that they receive. Yes ma'am. So the first thing would be the drinking water CIP and you'll see that in your slide packet as well. So in general we look at about a one third of the capital improvement program funding toward drinking water and about one third a two thirds toward wastewater and the consent decree drives a lot of that wastewater spend. So you'll see our priorities are always regulatory compliance and making sure that that we're treating an adequate volume of water and distributing that to our customers and that the quality of that water is excellent. So you'll see water quality is driving about 62 percent of our spend. That's really really important and think when you hear water quality think brown water making sure we're addressing discolored water and also addressing water leaks because that can impact water quality as well. So aging infrastructure plays into that. It's left over sir but not in the original contract will be completed around July. And there were meters where we may have tree roots in the meter boxes and in services that need to be renewed. And so we didn't pay the contractor to do those. They just returned those to us. There's a dip. We wouldn't have a plumber that's just setting meters do those. So there's a group of those that haven't been upgraded to the new meters because the service line or the box has got to be upgraded. So that that's starting to take that's the last. How many hundreds of thousand about 150 some odd thousand. Yes sir there's a few holdovers there that we've got to address. And so that does that and that offers an opportunity for us to involve small local contractors to do that type of work. So that is all bonded and ensured. Yes sir. Yes sir. Absolutely. You'll see our filter improvements at the Canal and Lake Murray water treatment plant funded at two and a half million dollars. That was partially funded last year and do some cost escalations where we're needing an additional 2.5 million to execute that project. That is very very important. We've got some old filter under drains that if we don't replace those we're going to have trouble. Meeting summer demands going forward. We're able we're OK for this year but it's just routine maintenance that absolutely has to be done has to be a priority for us. You'll you'll notice the Rosewood area water line replacement funded at three million dollars. That's phase one of Rosewood. We funded that to the tune of seven and a half million dollars last year. The cost of price the cost of pipe asphalt valves fittings all the materials. The cost of that project has grown quite a bit. So we're estimating an additional three million dollars needed to fully fund that project and move forward with that. Yes sir. Well it was originally estimated a few years ago. But yes sir. That's what the estimate the engineering estimate is coming back at now. But that the design of phase two and three of Rosewood is still continuing. Yes sir. Nearing completion. So we'll be ready when we can fund it with CIP to move on to phase two and then to phase three. You don't see shandon water quality on here this year for additional funding. We're completing the design of that one. We'll be ready to move that to construction in the process. Yes sir. Yes sir. So we're going to do the permitting complete the design do the permitting and have it shovel ready for next year CIP and then supplement cost hopefully come down. Right. We hope so. Yes sir. You'll also notice water quality projects city wide four million dollars. That's an opportunity for us to to identify areas where we've had continual leaks continual pressure problems continual discolored water complaints. Those can be in house designs and our intention is to take at least a good portion of that and let our small contractors execute that work. And so it again local dollars being spent to execute that work. We could spend a lot more in that area. Councilman DeVall you ask about what would what are we not doing. There's a lot more we could do in terms of replacing aging infrastructure. But we think four million dollars gives us a good start toward that program of working down and it allows us to address those. You know they're not part of a bigger project but it hit some of those hot spots. There's some apartment complex where we have chronic leaks and chronic water quality problems go in and replace that infrastructure. And those are designs we can do with our engineers in house and get do a quick bid and get the work done. So we want to be very efficient in doing that. Demonstrate that we can spend that four million and come back next year with a higher number for that. Any questions about the drinking water silo. I'll just show you a map really quickly. It doesn't show up well at all of what we're doing. A lot of treatment plant work and some water quality work. It should be. So we'll move on to wastewater. Obviously consent decree compliance is very important. Minimizing sanitary sewer overflows is very important. And making sure that we've got capacity in our lines so that we don't have those capacity restricted areas. Very very important. We're stepping back in terms of our spin this year. We're looking at a twenty seven million dollar CIP. As we look at that hundred and twenty going forward. Those are big numbers but that's pretty serious things. We start using up any dead band any float that we've got in schedules. So we'll be having a much different conversation next year to try to be able to make sure we can meet those those requirements. And we'll know those answers from the covid force measure request. You'll see West Columbia pump station improvements. We've got some work that if we don't do there we're capacity limited for West Columbia and all the way up through the Saluda River Basins. So very very important work that we've got to do there. It's not big work but it's very important. Yes sir. Retail sewer to West Columbia. Yes sir. I'm sorry I'm sorry. They're a wholesale supplier to we take their flow on a wholesale basis. They're actually part owner of the Metro wastewater treatment plant. Very small percentage but they own a portion of the Metro wastewater treatment plant. Any capital upgrade we do including West Columbia pump station they pay a small portion of that based on a flow proportion and capacity proportion. Less than five percent. I'd have to look at them twenty five percent. Yes sir. Yes sir. It costs a dollar and we're paying ninety five. No sir and part of the part of that original contract was based on the flow the amount of the capacity that they own. I'll have to look and see what they're charging. Yes sir and I don't I'm sorry I don't know off the top of my head but I'll find that answer for you. So this is a good map that demonstrates that. We have capacity issues up potential capacity issues up in the northeast to Crane Creek Basin. This area. So if we don't do some things that would limit us from adding taps in that area and also serving the Blythewood industrial part which is very hot right now. And we're the ones that are in a position to be able to serve you know the industry up there any particularly any categorical industry that might come up there. So very important that we were able to keep that area out of capacity limitation. Biggest problem with our consent degree. I'd like to see those calculations. I'm still believing that. Yes sir. I mean it to go from here to the wastewater treatment plant. That's a long way. No question about it. And it's a tortured path. All downhill. But it does this area does drain organically to our North Columbia pump station. But I hear you and I understand that we've really tried not to limit development and growth in that area if at all possible. Same partner structures. We have more partner structures like we have with West Columbia and other reasons of our water districts. We are a wholesale taker of sewer for Carolina water for Fort Jackson Richland County in a few small areas. Yes sir. And when it comes to wastewater we as a water utility board make make that decision if we do expand into two other areas. The service areas are defined by what's called the 208 plan and being on the cog. Yes sir. And so the boundaries are defined. And so we have to petition to change those boundaries. They were largely developed based on gravity flow. And the regional planning concept is to have fewer discharges into the river from fewer plants. Yeah. Are we coming to the close to the end of our borders for that? Yes sir. We serve everywhere within our 208 area. Yeah. We have very little. It's mostly infill now what we were talking about. We don't have any plans to ask for extensions of the 208 area. You'll notice the Saluta River Basin as well. There are several critical projects that we're moving forward with that we've got to do one being it's on the CIP for this year. The Saluta River Force Main Extension. If we don't get those projects executed and the capacity limitation deadline is finalized and comes into effect, then you could have a huge swath of that area from Harbison down and including some wholesale from Blue Granite Carolina water go into a moratorium. So we're trying to move forward either with design or construction with each of those projects. So if it's not funded, we're ready to move whenever we know when those true deadlines are. We're doing everything we can to stay out of that situation. But these are major spins. These are pretty significant dollars to be spent in those areas to serve within our designated 208 plan. If we didn't, if we didn't commit to those funds, would that completely shut down development in those areas? If we don't meet the deadlines, yes sir, it would no more sewer taps. That's what that would mean. Yes sir, that's going up Interstate 26, St. Andrews, Harbison, yes sir. Any other questions about our wastewater spend? A little bit of expenditure plan for the waste treatment plant. Just some necessary things that we have to do with dewatering there and thickening. Most of it's spelled out there. Let's move on to stormwater. You'll see the list of projects there. Our drivers for stormwater in terms of capital projects are really trying to address nuisance flooding and restoring ditches or streams and making those work better and beautifying them while we do that. And then water quality is also a piece of that equation where you've got some constructed wetlands and detention and that sort of thing. It allows the opportunity for the sediment to settle out and you're not polluting the streams and the waterways as much. So that's a lot of what we're doing. You'll see the specific projects listed. You may think convention center tunnel. We may or may not be doing something at convention center. Why are we doing something to the tunnel? There's a tunnel that goes under that convention center property. It's already there. There could be some structural issues with that. And so we've got Jimmy Chow and the team looking at that and we budgeted some structural improvements to that. So that it's ready. If anything needs to be built on top of it or it's ready. If nothing's built on top of it, we're just shoring that up. Yes, sir. It's I understand north of Lake Catherine and it's really stretch from Trentham Road down. Yes, sir. I believe it is. Is that the wall? It is the wall. Yes, sir. That is that is reconstructing that wall and that ditch and making it flow properly because it is caved in in some areas is in danger of caving in another area. So we've been working with property owners to try to reconstruct that. I'm sure that up. Yeah. Yes, sir. Pieces are done. But this particular stretch is not done. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. We've been working strategically on some hot spots, but this is to address the entire pen branch area going down a little late. What I call the choke point where it chokes in the world, which is that choke canal that goes in there because I mean I walked by there at night. The stormwater meeting the other residents were really concerned about long term because of how much sediment is coming from forest acres and other places that are collecting in there. Is this a discussion we need to have with forest acres as well? I know they traditionally have not contributed this, but I mean all the studies that we did on little lake cap and big lake cap show the significant amount of that material coming from there. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. It absolutely is a discussion we need to have. I don't believe, I wish Dana were here, she's celebrating her daughter's graduation USC. But she wouldn't know the details. I don't believe dredge of little lake is included in this specific project. Not a little lake, the canal. The canal leading to you. I'll find out, Mayor, I'm just not sure. That would be, I think it, based on what's triggered down there in long term, yeah. I know we put some money away for little lake cavern. I know that Frank and them have committed to a portion of it. The county is where we still have a gap that we need to follow up with because that's affecting, those from there, the big lake, which then goes to Gilles Creek, which then creates another problem for us. Yes, sir. Thank you. Any other questions? Different funds throughout the city. We probably haven't really shown this in years. It is, but there's been several requests and it's probably good to understand what we do have out there. We do post this each year in the annual report. It's in the back in one of the schedules amongst the 500 other schedules. So it's pretty good for us to show you all this. Right here we're taking a look at our, this would be all of our debt that's reflected in the general fund. It's broken out so you can see principal and interest that's due with the total amount for fiscal year 2023. That number will match the numbers that Missy Hoffman has showed you. We show you the first five years, then we show you the amounts over broken out over the years after that. Capital lease repayment schedules also included in the debt service. So over the last several years you've heard Missy and staff talk to you all about a capital lease. We use that for mostly for our rolling stock for the general fund. Over the years we've, that capital lease has been either seven and a half to eight million and this year it'll be nine million dollars. So for fiscal year 23, that's our total amount due is the five million seven hundred and eight. That's on past year's capital leases. It's going to be more. It was very inexpensive. I'll have to get that back out to you. I'll look at the last five that we've done and I'll actually send it out and give you the interest rate on all five of them. Is the lease countered against our eight percent? Good question. It is not. The banks are aware of that too. That's a common question. Next up this is our water sewer debt service schedule. The little bit larger number than our others. You'll see our total outstanding principal is six hundred and seventy five million nine hundred and seventy five. That's paid off between now and twenty fifty two. For fiscal year twenty twenty three you'll see the total amount is the forty five million three sixty one. That was on the study earlier. There's also on the study that I showed you and Missy showed you earlier. There's also an additional amount that's not included on there yet of about two million five hundred and thirty eight thousand. That'll be the bond that we still have to issue this fall. We had first reading two months ago. We'll have second reading coming up. One of the things we're working on doing is getting back into a regular schedule. So anytime we issue bonds they occur after that council has approved that budget. So we might not get into an awkward position of one council approves a budget and a bond issue. But then if we have turnover on council we don't issue to the next spring. But that is what's happening this time. And going forward we'll can we'll issue our water and sewer bonds in the fall right after we have. Added to this first reading so we're going to issue it. Well I don't know the truth that service. I can add that in. It's it's an estimate question. No it'll be potentially for eighty nine million. We'll see how cash finishes. That's what we're brought to you. That is part of our that goes towards the IP and cash. So we had a hundred and twenty not twenty million in cash in the current year that we're in. We really needed to ideally issue that bond but not every project has started. So we're delaying it for several months. Oh oh oh for where it be paid here. There'll be a half a year's payment. It would go into the FY twenty three. We estimate two million five hundred thirty. Bonding that we're doing. Cash if there's if there is a refunding ability although in the current environment I'm not going to suggest that that's a likelihood. This is our stormwater debt service schedule. We did issue a bond back in two thousand and eighteen for approximately forty three million dollars. That was the first part of the stormwater rates. Then we have our parking debt service schedule. You'll have not seen the parking. I quit talking. But for fiscal year twenty three. The total for principal and interest three million. The coverage is all the other stuff that you do. The ratios. We can. Yes. Would you like to use estimate for the upcoming year or kind of based on historical. I can maybe I can do both. I'll take a look and see what we can put together. Okay. I'll say requested. Come up with parking system. We do. I'll get an update. A little longer in three or four weeks. I'll get you an update. We've added. Which is a different study on the outsourcing and enforcement. Our hospitality tax debt service schedules. Like the others. It lists the amount for the next five years. We do not have anything scheduled. Coming up for any new issues. Yes sir that includes everything. The reason why we're in debt. It feels like with water. Because we use that for the larger multi-million dollar project. There's some other issues from eighteen years ago that paid for some things as well. Some of it was a renovation. Some of it was for just even like the. About these park the signs that were out there. For the way finder program. So what we can do is get a list of the projects. To you from the older bonds. What's the difference in the year twenty eight thirty two. Well that's. That's five years worth of debt. So going forward after the first five years it's a. It's actually copied out of how it gets reported in the annual report. So when I send this out I'll also show you all the coverage ratios. Because that those are all important numbers in all of these different funds. That's all I have on debt unless y'all have additional questions. Sure. Yes I would anticipate August September. Again. Okay we have a few more things to get through today. And so. Make progress here in the next. So parking fund. The parking fund proposed budget is nine point two million dollars. We did provide this information about the revenues back in. March we have. Maintain those revenue projections for the coming year. It is relatively flat compared to current year. However current year we had projected use of American rescue plan funds. We are not projecting that in the coming year. Based on the way we are seeing revenue collections coming in today. So we are not projecting any use of American rescue plan funds. Most likely in this year at all I believe to make our budget. As well as for next year. And Jeff will go over cash as well with that one. Yes sir. Rate increases once we get that study back. I do. The rate study definitely could come back with some suggested rates. Adjusted rate adjustments. But we don't have what those are at this point in time. And so city council would take those into consideration when they're brought forward. So we wouldn't make any predictions. My question is when we want to project something in there for rate increase. We project stuff in there for property tax increases. And we don't have that yet either. Man my point is. One of the things I've heard as we've looked through economic development things over and over again. Is that we're too inexpensive on our garage parking. I think that's a general consensus that we have that. And I feel. I mean I would think. That is going to validate what we already know. I think we were. Then we can talk about. I think if we were to do. A rate projection or assumptions. Of some dollar amount. We would probably reserve that amount in the expenditure side in order to have the budget balance. And not anticipate spending it until we knew whether or not the rate study would come in at that rate or something. Possibly so we could look at that consideration. It would go it while we budget as a reserve for potential. Most likely for cash in the system or regards to capital projects for other future needs. Which Jeff can talk about here in a moment as well when it gets to. To cash if you want to go ahead and come up. Well I will say while right while I'm up here and finishing that piece. So revenues are coming in fairly strong of course parking meters being. Probably the strongest of that and then of course our garages and lots. Which reflects the addition of two new garages that are opening in this or decks. As they are called opening in this current fiscal year as we're all aware. Free street and several several street. And parking study is on the way as well. So the parking studies on the way. Make a good point. Why do we not project that now. Water and sewer we can be very clear exactly what we're doing with it and what it is. We can do comparisons. Water and sewer is much easier to compare just nationwide it's everywhere. Parking systems are hard to compare to other systems other than just what you and I pay when we go and pay on the street. Because they're run differently some are a general fund some to the enterprise. Some just lose money and it's it's been different. So we also as staff don't really have the experience on what we're going to do in a rate increase in parking. I've been here 14 years we have never had a parking rate increase. We had a penalty increase one time of like a dollar. So a few times that we brought it up. So I will say there's a lot of capital improvement needs in our parking system. And if we come back I know that Missy Gentry sitting for me right now with me and her and staff to meet with the people going through the study. So based upon your comments I'm actually interested to see how far along and what their suggestions are. And we might be able to come back and take a look at this a little differently based upon the revenues which would really add. I'm not suggesting it should add to the cash of the system. That's always nice. But we've got a lot of improvements maintenance needs and all of the current garages that that's probably where we're going to want to utilize it. One of the things that we've discussed some is modernizing and maybe looking at the possibility of removing meters and things and replacing it with more enterprise type parking arrangements. And again we're going to look at the possibility of CapEx on those type things. We need to put the revenue in there. You know. And again I would like for us as Wilson to go ahead and begin to set the level of expectation that that rates are going to get adjusted. I mean we could see a pretty significant. Well I mean we just don't want it to read like that. And because I do think there's some very stimulating conversations on things we can accomplish with parking downtown and other areas that we probably want to do. It's going to cost some money but they're going to all generate I think additional revenue. So that's the only thing is. And I would add I mean you know part of what we've been talking about is having staff also assess skinning and cleaning up the garages. The appearance when you ride by don't look so aged and all of that's going to cost money and it's got to be driven from the system. We have life safety issues. Yeah. Yeah. Right now. Yeah. In terms of the timeline of the rate study do we know when we'll have that completed and will that be aligning with the budgeting process. Maybe we could get a little indication so that y'all could start planning to go ahead and put in. An estimate so that we can start working towards. Just to add what the mayor was saying is if we if we had some preliminary cost estimates what it might cost us to change out things like meters to passport or other type of things and and and to wash these garages and things like that. Mike would even give us some guidance as to how much we wanted to and when we wanted to execute rate rate increases in the garage. I never hear this. So just. Yes. So cash parking fund cash just to give you an idea we're at this is as of the end of March. So our beginning cash eight million three hundred forty eight thousand dollars we have encumbrances mostly capital a little bit operating two million that leaves net cash is six point three million. There are no outstanding bond funds or anything else. I want to stress what Miss Kauffman had mentioned earlier we did not use a rp in the current year for any of the past year. So but we still have I'm going to say some cash that fund balance used to be a little closer to nine ten eleven million. We have dwindled some of our last few years some of it's been through projects to improve but some of it was just going through the last couple years. The revenues were a little low. That's putting it mildly the pandemic had had an effect on the parking system. However we've come through it. We talk about fund balance and the importance of fund balance over the years when bond holders not that we've issued a new bond with parking recently but that's one of the reasons I asked those questions so you they try to determine can they sustain getting through. I'm not sure we all thought of pandemic but not the best number but it is still better than zero. It is better than zero and it is still chugging along. I may be done for the day so you don't have to hear from me anymore. That was an invitation I believe. Yes sir. Yeah I can go and take a look see exactly what they are most most of that's going to be some sort of smaller capital any major project. It says operations expenditures. I'll have to check. I'll be honest. I don't believe too much of that in conferences on the sprucing upside. It is probably not on the sprucing upside. It's probably more on other dramatic. It may be capital. It's just not what elevator. Okay so we'll talk about the definition but so it could be work on an elevator. I would call that a capital. You have to come up here. I just want to make sure that we are not using different things. One of the examples will be from a capital perspective we have some structure issues in terms of the cracks in the infrastructure. That's pretty serious. The older the rods so that will be an example. It's in the elevators operation. I mean I do. I'm not an operation. That would be an operation. A new elevator in is capital. That's what I thought we were. That's not a new elevator. It's a $600,000 big. A new elevator would follow on the capital side. Maintaining or maintenance. I just think we need to be clear. I just think we need to be clear about that. I don't have any. I'm talking. Absolutely and I think once the rate study comes back and we bring forward what plans would be for those funds that we were able to generate from the rate study would be in a capital program as well as some operating obviously some operating improvements because some of those repairs some of those expenses are going to be an operating be part of the operating costs. So moving through the parking fund budget again the operating side reflects parking facilities and parking operations that would be the sport services crew as well as the staff the parking the meter readers and the garage attendants and all of the folks that maintain and operate our parking system. There is a debt services Mr. Palin has recently reviewed with you of $3 million and a transfer to the general fund at 500 on the full street right there that would be in a different because that's that's not a bond that's not a bond you got something else because yes I saw there's a parking bond that comes into play there will be and it's not on here yet we haven't issued them yet so the first set of decks are paid for out of we generically caught the OPEB funds so that was the 16 million in change those are the two decks that are being built right now in 20 I'll have to pull up the memo and I can redistribute that I think it's 2029 the parking system will then issue a bond and pay the funds back to the city or specifically to the OPEB fund with a rate of return the second set of garages or garage estimate amount 20 million 600 when you say to exist so the cash has been paid out of OPEB so one and a half percent yeah I'm gonna have to look I believe that's a discussion we have with the auditor this year of whether we'll start accruing for the one and a half percent and for the full thing and how to reflect that is dead because we have not issued the bond yet but the discussion becomes it's an obligation because y'all have passed an ordinance I got a matter of sense an ordinance or resolution so as we finish up this year that's going to be this that's one of the discussions we're having so our new financier is going to have fun having that discussion too she wasn't here during the enactment of this we can add that I can add that the site I mean yes sir no you're correct we have added that in other documents about that very both of the potential bond issues we worked with the with our financial advisor we could not issue the bonds in the current in the parking system today so at that point those bonds would be issued in conjunction with the existing bonds at both times so they're all getting rolled in together system is not would not have the ability to do it today it is believed it will have the ability to do it in 2029 so you have a you make a very good point and as something Brent Roberts and I have talked about as we go through this rate study in the past it'd be harder to be doing that based upon the parking system in the rates that we charge as we look to change the rate structure that is something that that is something council is interested in we certainly can do that hey I am I am right there on you this is kind of different so yes I'll be more than happy to look at that and we can see how that that figures in the hospital we were you have both hospitality tax and accommodations tax first being the hospitality tax budget which is we are projecting 12.7 million dollars in hospitality that is an increase of 2.6 million error or 27 percent ever the budget current year budget but it's about 2 percent over both current year and projected prior year actual collections it is more representative of pre-pandemic collections we're glad to say with regards to our hospitality tax revenues program which is it very very good we also again are not including any allocation from American rescue plan funds in this budget and do not anticipating needing to use those in the current budget so we'll go over that fund balance as well any questions about revenues before we speak to H tax fund balance it's into the presentation yep we'll cover revenues and then go into how you want to allocate those revenues so as far as h tax fund balance we projected having the fund but when we have a fund balance starting July 1 of 4.1 million we had projected use of fund balance in the current budget of 1.2 million then we also included a budget of use of ARPA from 1.7 again as mentioned we don't feel like we will need to utilize fund balance or the or the ARP funds in terms of revenue projections we're projecting to collect about 1.12.1 million and a budget of 13 million and I know that looks like it we would be over spending our revenues we actually have a current year budget the hospitality tax budget is right at 12.7 and of course we do have some prior year actuals that would come in there as well so subtotal looks like we are projecting about an ad about $900,000 to our fund balance so we'd be ending the year about $3.2 million with the fund balance that would be ending June of 2023 right so ending right now just keeping that in mind as we move forward in some years past we have allocated fund balance with the budget we're not necessarily advocating for that we're just putting it out there and letting everyone know since we have talked about our cash balances and our other funds as far as expenditures available for allocation using just the budgeted revenues or projected revenues is 6.5 again we have not projected any use of any fund balance the budget the proposed budget includes a transfer of the general fund of 3.7 million and includes debt service of 2.5 which is what leaves the balance of the 6.5 available for allocation what's the 3.7 used for in the general fund so in the general fund that would be for activities and services that the general fund provides that would be eligible for hospitality funds and eligible age tax uses recreation so our a lot of our park greenway systems would be ineligible use as recreational is one is one example and the 3.2 how does this play into this is what's projected can you explain that again i'm on the previous page the 3.2 million how does that so that's referring to our fund balance that's referring to just like we did with the other funds that's basically the cash what we have now what we would project to have is available this would be over and above our projected budget for the coming year so looking at just as some primer information and background how hospitality tax funds have been allocated previously of course we have our age tax committee we're hopeful that today you will give us an amount that city council will allocate towards the age tax committee so that that committee can start meeting and making recommendations for allocations that of course come back to city council for final approval as you recall we have a grant program all of those grants have been received or applications have been received and the age tax committee has been assembled for a upcoming meetings those meetings have not been set yet but would be scheduled once we have an idea as to how much would be available for allocation say grants you say it's the line item that you're talking about those line items are actually a separate group okay line on emergencies are we almost think of them as a sort of legacy groups of the city the city has some kind of fiduciary responsibility for them we either own the facility or we have some other kind of relationship with them for instance um coming museum of art or historic columbia we own the homes of historic columbia two of the homes but um and then we have a contract required for that help support the operations of those homes that's both age tax committee and line item agencies that's but 3.8 is what the age what has all of the applications that have come in are reflecting of 3.8 million and the 6.5 is what you have available to spend of those allocations and this is just a request so let me clarify to so to clarify what what you see on the proposed budget is just what they've requested is not city staff has not made any recommendations for allocations to either line item agencies or the committee so what you're seeing is what the total amount has been requested from these groups the only other category that was I'm sorry it's um it's it's in the attachments it's in the hospitality tax summary is probably the best way in your memo packet the line item agencies the group the applications don't come to the line item agency requests are in here how much how much they requested we will definitely add h and numbers to the future discussions yes we understand so again um the other and then there is another section of allocations that's been from we refer to as council allocations there has not been as many of those this year because in the current year city council made all of the allocations because of the committee was suspended we do reflect city council is in the past or we in the past have had a contract for some calendar services with leisure fund again these are just uh what's been suggested parks recreation foundation we do continue to fund those for special events like the veterans day parade is one example those are actually operated by and they also help fund the police services at these events as well and then river alliance um the contract with the river alliance that the city has that's split between general fund and hospitality tax fund so as far as for today's discussions looking forward as already has been mentioned staff has not made any recommendations for allocations um pending conversations with city council what has come before you all today into the city with regards to request reflect the amount from that hospitality tax committee of course that's just the amount that's been requested from all of the applications that's not assuming all of the applications are even eligible they've made it through the initial part so that they presumably they are eligible um and then of course line I'm agency's request three million when when when is the committee we were targeting to meet with the committee at the end of May or early April early June so that by the second meeting in June we would bring back city council recommendations for city council approval of the committee allocations so that they could start so we could start the fiscal year July one that's not amount that they have to work with that's what's been requested by all of the applications we're waiting today for or looking for city council direction in terms of how much you would want to allocate for committees it's been in the neighborhood of two to three million pre-covid um it's been a little while since we've had a committee so that's a good number sir I do not have a number of applications but I can get that for you 1670 so how does that account for the cultural office and the zoo question so that's another part of the equation unfortunately my apologies I have to run here in just a second sure and this is right for us to discuss yeah that's a proposal I have yeah that's info I'll bring forward on that because it was my proposal I'll bring that proposal forward to council on that $400,000 not today not today same thing on the zoo right correct we could reserve out an amount for that and determine how much an amount for the others and then of course also consideration for allocation for Findlay Park which would likely be done through they're probably looking at their full so the only number that is so the only number that is for sure is the 6.5 and then how we decide to divvy it up for the different ways of spending hospitality tax is what needs to be determined yes ma'am okay right I think the actual total what request well yeah so let I did not add that up for you but I could certainly add up everything that's on your sort of request list to give you a total amount and it everything requested of course exceeds the 3.8 plus 3.0 requests already is very close to the I mean it's probably going to be over what we even have to allocate right because they're asking some people are asking a 252 right I just wanted to get from missy I think the the thing that has time constraints though is giving her a number so that the committee can do its work and so I need to know when you need to know that or when we need to have that decision because it discussion next week again at one point that decision next week we have to do it by the end of the month because she wants to have it done by the first for them to meet the first of June so that's the main thing I just want to make sure that we don't throw the time off for them by the end of the month then the next two work sessions we got to have that number nailed down what we want to give to the committee and then we can continue to waffle over all the other stuff and we can look at a small number that we can later if we find you know if there's extra money increase well you can always we can always set a number that's similar to what we did in the past and if we have left over they can meet again and do additional requests so yeah I think we have already heard from a few that did not meet the grant deadline and we did not well you know that's every process so I know we're wrapping getting close yeah let's finish up she's got accommodations can I I have to scoot can I just ask one question about accommodations tax before I forgive the tourism development fee which will become available June or July right Jeff first in this next fiscal year yeah we may have to create a new agreement okay all I'm saying is one of the things that if that when that comes up I think we should look at that as a capital deal for you know as something maybe we use for Findlay Park or something like that would be awesome process that's a thought process yeah well it's not on this list thank god so just to wrap up then on accommodations tax that projected budget is 2.6 million similarly we did include on here what's been requested historically city council has allocated to two groups from accommodations tax even though we do have a few additional requests from other applications this year accommodations tax is pretty well subscribed in law in state law in terms of how you can allocate it so roughly 95 percent of the budget is allocated to tourism and marketing related facilities and activities historically city council has allocated that those funds to the experience Columbia and the other amount is to Lake Murray country with Lake Murray with experience Columbia receiving 85 percent of the budget and Lake Murray receiving 15 percent of the budget we also have what's called the general purpose portion of the budget which is five percent of the budget and then those can be used basically for general type of activities historically we have used those funds to allocate to the city's one Columbia contract and in the past there was a together we can read this year together we can read did not occur so those funds were utilized for inspire real change contract again we have not made any recommendations for allocations that committee by law has to meet so there is also an accommodations tax committee that is separate so on this on the line item where is the experience Columbia total so under expenditures versus accommodations tax allocations the total of 2.5 million dollars I collapsed it there because I didn't because we do have other applications we have a few other applications this year okay but I can get you the amount that is allocated to both Lake Murray and I should have included that but so inspire real change was a contract that was awarded two council meetings ago for homeless services I don't remember Tracy Tracy Dobbins who does what when and where thank you all right you going to the fourth okay so wrapping up so wrapping up the budget calendar just to give everyone an expectation about the way the budget works the budget calendar so as mayor recommended miss Wilson had mentioned we will bring back additional budget discussions for you starting next week that will be added to your regular city council meeting on May the 17th so that's an additional time on your calendar to meet the public hearing requirements and deadlines for the June 7th budget public hearing and first reading which is a regular council meeting date we would need to send the advertisement to the newspaper by May the 19th so next council meeting is the last time before we actually have to advertise that so the grainy picture everybody here is clear on what that means is the number it's the bottom line number everything else we can change in between we can move from department department whatever but we gotta we have to publish that that final number so that grainy picture on the right mirror is showing the actual advertisement that is this is prescribed by state law looks how we ever tell you neighbors yeah all right this is actually prescribed this is actually prescribed by state law as to how you have what you have to include in the advertisement this is reflective of the general fund budget so it would be general fund revenues and general fund expenditures we have our scheduled for another budget workshop on May the 24th which is an additional Tuesday then we have a budget workshop at this point scheduled also on May the 31st which is another Tuesday public hearing and first reading is scheduled for May the for June the 7th which is a regular city council meeting date and then of course second reading will be June 21st and our fiscal year begins July 1st at your commitment it's a lot of information but this is a good general look and I think as we go through the next steps it'll make things a lot clearer and we can see but it's good discussion but start you know as we were thinking about think about your questions and and thoughts from your overall general and you know clarity because we really do need to stay on this schedule for June 7th as much as possible so and I think the attempt and I want to make sure everybody understands we as we started in this project and this process of the budget is is that the intent was always to be able to reinvest within in our departments and within the city we're not looking to extract money to take somewhere else we really want to invest in the departments and it could be training it could be personnel it could be contract work however we need to do it but we're talking about money staying in but making sure that we're providing the customer service keyword here customer service to the public I just I'd rather have extra time on the back end I'd rather get done early than run late 31st I think it was just all right thank you thank you all so much