 everybody. I am going to call the first committee of the whole meeting for 2023 to order to roll call Alder Felde, Alder Felikie Paneski, Alder Ackley is excused, Alder Ramey, Alder Salazar, Alder Decker, Alder Pirella, Alder Mitchell, Alder Heidemann, and Alder Rust is present. Go number two, Pledge of Allegiance. This is to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. I do not believe we have anybody for public forum this evening so we will move on to number four and I just like to remind that this is an overview. We're getting an idea tonight. We're not going to, we'll ask questions after each presentation. That'd be much appreciated. We all have to go work tomorrow. All right, Dr. Krueger. Thank you very much. So first off I want to start with a overview of what we're looking at for 2024 in order to have all of the committee aware of what the options are moving forward. You will hear from every department over the next, I'll say the next two meetings. So tonight and a reminder that next Monday, September 11th is the second committee of the whole meeting with the second set of departments presenting. First I wanted just to bring up some items of note. The budget is still in a fluid state. As most of you know from previous budget cycles, often the budget comes to council in a proposed form towards the end of the year. It's typically given out in the end of October. We're having these presentations tonight and next week so that the council has a better opportunity and more chances to ask questions of departments and to understand better what the needs of everyone are. So I just encourage, like Alder Rust mentioned, make sure you're asking questions if you have anything for the department heads while they're here. The current budget projections and the numbers that you'll see tonight are based on the guidance that have been given to me from Alder's Decker and Salazar and also the mayor. I will note that administrator Bradley, though he has will not be officially starting for several weeks, he has committed to helping out and give some guidance on this process so that I am not the one making decisions but somebody else is taking that away from me, which is great. So again the second committee of the whole budget workshop is September 11th, so next Monday following finance and personnel committee. October 2nd is when the common council actually gets the budget resolution with the preliminary numbers built into it, which will then get referred again to this body, the committee of the whole for review on October 23rd. And then November 6th is the date that common council needs to adopt the budget in order for the tax bills to go out later in the month. So I wanted just to again bring up the goals for the committee tonight. You're going to hear from department heads regarding their current and upcoming challenges that the city and their department is facing. Our hope is that you gain an understanding of the requests that are going to be coming forward so that you can ask those questions and make sure that you feel comfortable with what the budget ends up being proposed and brought forward to you. And additionally there is the opportunity for committee members to have their voice heard on what they think is important to be included in the final preliminary budget. So the proposed budget before it comes forward. So again if there's something of note that you want on the record to have be considered for the final version of the budget you see, make sure that you speak your mind as well. So first I'm going to take a step back and just tell the committee what we have done to date. There were budget instructions given to every department head with three sections that were told to be gone through. The first was an item for known increases because we are in a different type of financial situation for 2024 as in previous compared to previous years. We do have a little bit of flexibility for some actual filling of requests. I'll say the past two years that I've been here the budget process more has been if you know you have an increase you have to cut somewhere else in order to fulfill the need that you have elsewhere. So we have the known increases from every department those are items that are contractual that we have to have to have in the budget every year and we know that their increase is going to be coming. So instead of having people the department heads cut elsewhere within their budget we asked for the listing of those known increases to see if we could fulfill some of those requests. The second item was an additional needs listing. This was a list of items that weren't necessarily a known required increase to be built into the budget but an item that is very important to the department in efficiency or improved service or pretty much of necessity but we have not been covering it to date. So those are the additional needs listings and then lastly there is the capital improvements program which we won't be covering that tonight because we'll already be here for a while I'm sure. So the department heads turned in their items August 15th and on August 22nd the department heads held a workshop actually very similar to what we're doing here tonight where every department head presented their items to the rest of the department head staff in order for internally us to get a better understanding of what every department's up against and what requests are coming through. So it gave the department heads the chance just like you are tonight to ask questions of our peers and understand the challenges that we're up against. Also the IT service fund charges have been reallocated with a new formula. Previously it was based on some arbitrary number that was determined I'm guessing decades ago where it was not really tied to anything in particular that we could tell. So we took the opportunity with the funds that we have to actually reallocate it according to actual formula users, computers, users, email addresses for department, phones, items of that sort to actually have it tied to an actual formula. So we did do that and it is built into the budget for 2024 and we took the opportunity so that previously if there was an increase again in IT service fund charges the departments were required to cover it with something else in their department so by cutting something else. So since we're asking them to give us their known increases we felt it was the time to reallocate so that the departments did not have to find those funds if it was going up for their department. I will say from that point of view finances charge this is just an example was previously $245,000 a year and so it will now be $75,000 I don't get to go and spend another $170,000 it's just reallocated to other departments. Additionally I have already done preliminary salary and budget benefit projections which have been calculated and put into the 2024 projection as well. We'll go over that very high level tonight but the review is continuing on that as well. So I wanted to start by just going over the known increases that were requested and I'm going to back up for a second. This entire presentation is in your packets online if you have not seen that already. So the 2024 budget known increases these are the pie chart here shows requests by function that's a financial reporting method so that's what you're seeing on the screen here. The amount that was requested for known increases by departments that are supported with tax levy was $1.02 million. So those are items that department had say are required next year in order to just maintain the level of business that we're already doing. There are other requests I shall say but they are covered by other items. So for example wastewater which we'll hear from tonight they have increases that they have built into their budget but they are covered by user fees so we're going to look at the general fund library and transit separately because those are impacted by the tax levy. Here are the budget known increases by department and this is as of today because there are like I mentioned earlier there are continuous changes to what items are out there for consideration. So again I'm not going to pinpoint any of these at the moment but these are what make up that $1.02 million worth of requests. For 2024 salary and benefit projections we have some factors that we included in order to come up with those numbers. We for non-represented employees or employees that are not in the union we did include an inflationary factor adjustment to the entire scale and then there is a step for them as well to recognize longevity for their year of service here. There is a percentage increase built in for the union contracts that we're anticipating. All three or four unions are currently their contracts are up or have expired so we do not know the final numbers for those but we have at least built in a percentage increase into the projection at this time. There are going to be no changes to health or dental insurance rates that's a huge win for employees. This is our third year with the same rates and I think most people know if you're not working that's quite unheard of. I know from my spouse's experience that was definitely unheard of so we're on the third year of the same premiums which is great for again the employees here. Also built into the projection are the increase in required WRS contribution rates. Again those are set by the state so that is completely out of the city's control but those are already built in. At this time we have no adjustment for seniority or years of service. When the COMP plan was initially introduced we had said that if there was funds available we would look at options to potentially adjust individuals who maybe did not get their full years of service recognized during the implementation. So there is no adjustment built into the projection at this time however I will be having next week with human resources presentation that number will be presented for consideration as well. So when we look at how much money we actually need in order to pay for these salary increases for the employees we already have it is a substantial number. You can see on the screen there's 2023 budget the 2024 projection and then the variance is how much money is either needed or not needed based on if you look at health insurance there's a reduction but the bottom line is the total increase for salary and benefits for 2024 is projected to be just over a million dollars. Of that million dollars 986,000 of it are general fund and library fund employees so the majority of the increases are in the general fund. I will also note the reason the health insurance is actually going down. I mentioned that the rates are staying the same we have had a significant number of individuals who previously had positions held by people with family insurance and it's gone to single insurance or single plus spouse which has a significantly lower cost so we have the actual amounts built in compared to the 2023 budget. So the 2024 additional needs these are the items that were requested above and beyond those known increases the request total for those are 2.1 million dollars majority of these requests are related to additional staffing and I I believe my last count was that the request for 24 full-time equivalent positions. Since we've been talking about the expenses we'll talk about the revenues for just a moment as well there are quite a few numbers that are still outstanding with the state but we do have two items that we do know about for increases for next year the bill that passed several maybe months ago now times flying but the state shared revenue increased from the state's bill that they passed is 1.9 million dollars so that's additional annual revenue that the city will see moving forward and there is an additional factor built in for future increases to that number that's tied to sales tax so it's not a one-time revenue that is a content on a number that will be their year after year moving forward. The tax levy adjustment estimate was approximately 780 thousand dollars the that number comes from two sources it is net new construction but also with the closure of the six tax increment districts earlier this year that is where why that number is so high this year compared to normal that is again a number that will be in our tax levy that we could take every year moving forward if we so choose and that number I think on an average previous year was about 200 000 so that just shows how much more there is for 2024 compared to a normal year. There are no tids that are looking at closing in the near future and I will also just mention that the other half of the tid closure has to go to tax reductions so we don't get the we get 780 thousand if it was based on the full value of the tid it would have been more funds in the tax levy but the state law actually has it written that you only get to capture 50 percent of that so it's supposed to go towards tax relief for the other half. The other unknown items currently include the department of transportation road and highway aid and the manufacturing assess value is still not posted as of today and then the in future years just for consideration and just to make sure everyone remembers the utility aid will decrease over a certain number of years if the plant ever does decide to close. Big picture we're looking at the financial impact of what we're talking about tonight the projected revenue increase with just that tax levy amount and the state shared revenue is about 2.75 million dollars if we take the 1.02 million dollars of known adjustments that were requested and the current salary increases that have been put into the projection we are actually looking at approximately 746 thousand dollars left to be spent that's that bottom number if we add in the amounts that were additionally requested on that additional needs listing of 2.1 million we have actually over spent the budget by 1.4 million dollars so not everyone can get everything on their additional needs listing and we also as the council needs to consider that the these recurring expenses if we hire somebody you have to have that every year moving forward so it's just a consideration making sure that the council looks at kind of the big picture and strategic planning moving forward on how these requests should be considered. I said we're not talking about capital projects today but I did at least want to get high level for you so that you have again the bigger picture so the current year 2023 to 2027 capital improvement project plan that's in place has 17 million dollars worth of capital projects in the budget for this year what was planned for next year in that same plan was just just about 23 and a half million dollars what has been submitted for 2024 as the request was 34.6 million dollars so we have an increase of about 11 million dollars worth of just requests for next year's budget in the capital improvement plan any questions on the budget overview before I jump into department presentations. Any questions? All right we'll roll right into number five. This will seem really fast so finance is of course my department so I'm here to present on their finances behalf. I'd say the current and upcoming challenges for the department are really just related to process improvement and still cleaning up previous records. There are audit findings that we have had on the past several years worth of audits that I'm still attempting to get through and I'm hoping to get through them in the next cycle of audit but with almost a full new staff in finance in the finance department over the past two years it has been a learning curve for almost all of us. Luckily we have some two employees who have been here longer than two years and they have been a great help to the department but that is mostly what the challenges are for the finance department just working through those known issues that have been discussed previously with the council. The only known increase line that is in finances for contracted services the amount that I'm requesting is just over nine thousand dollars. This covers two contracts one being Sheboygan county we have a purchasing agent that we share with the county so that contract is going up just over $3,500 and then our audit contract with Baker Tilly has a built-in accelerator so it will be the 5,500 additional dollars there. Finance is not asking for any additional items beyond the contract increases and I'm also going to present for the municipal court because we know that the judge just started so I am just covering for tonight. The known increases for the municipal court total just just about $2,800 these include a software maintenance subscription software maintenance and subscription for their tips software going up by three percent the contracted services is going up about $1,200 for a new copy release payment that was increased over 2023 and then the amount for tools and small equipment covers two laptops per the IT replacement schedule. Municipal court is also not asking for any additional items at this time. Any questions on either of those departments? Any questions? Alder Pirella? I just have a quick question actually but regarding the previous general I'm curious about the 24 new full-time positions how does that compare to previous years do you know as far as a request of new full-time personnel staff? Sure so in previous years we really haven't given the option to department heads to have a request for additional staff because there was no funding available to actually pay for that so if they were to have had an additional staff member they would have to more than likely cover it with something else so let's say if they wanted a new laborer out in the field like for DPW for example they might have to reduce the amount of supplies that they get for that department so there have been minor table of organization changes that have been put through but a lot of them have been covered by different either expense reductions or slight revenue increases that could be tied to to that position and they would come up with by department right? Yeah okay yep thank you. Any other questions? All right he's seen none thank you director Krueger we will have Mayor Sorensen present budget. All right thank you council members. Mine will be generally pretty easy as well too for my budget over the course well first all I do want to commend and thank the finance director for her work and putting a lot of this together and doing the behind the scenes and running the numbers as well so this is definitely no easy task but overall I want to thank her too for just the increased cooperation and understanding amongst department heads and staff so we get a better understanding of you know the needs for the budget and obviously what is all discussed tonight is not final or what we're proposing tonight just giving council members a better understanding of where our needs are for each department so overall like director Krueger said too a lot of the the financial standing for the city is pretty good you know just closing a number of tids as well as the increases shared revenue puts us in a very strong financial standing for the city and as we work through this process we'll figure out where our needs are and by no means as the the full 24 number of employees will be or new increases will be presented for final approval for the council as well so overall my budget has decreased since I took office by about seven thousand dollars as a net just a few current challenges for my office is just staying on top of project management and initiative support to not only staff committees and community partners as well we have seen an increase of general costs with inflation when it comes to mailings constituent responses office supplies and membership related costs as well too I have a generally relatively new staff you know one person but just make me sure that we're providing her with the trainings and the tools that she needs to not only support staff but also internal communications as well my office budget is just asking for an overall increase of 900 dollars just split in generally about 300 increases 300 dollar increases in certain line items I have a printer that is kind of extended its warranty as well but it's still working so that's good budgetary news as well but no additional requests for me do we have any questions for the mayor otherwise I'll just jump into the administrator director Krueger put this together we have a question we have a question from Alder thank you I don't know if it would be mayor or if it would be city administrator but back in 2019 there was a community group that recommended very strongly that the city have a full-time communications director have you given some thought to that of course you've given it some thought to that so as director Krueger said too so we had our department had workshop a couple days back and this item was discussed with departments now from a department head level we understand that yes obviously if we could wave a magic wand we'd want to increase communications and improve it all across the board however from an internal conversation with department heads we meaning the department heads have a lot bigger priorities that we'd like to present the council with and talk through in terms of functioning as the city and making sure that we can continue to provide good services as well thank you any other questions all right we'll move right on to say minister here all right administrator budget is staying flat there are no additional known increases obviously some of the challenges we have we'll be doing some transition Casey Bradley will be starting in a couple weeks right out of the gate he'll be working on the strategic plan budget finalization as well as hiring across the city but making sure that we can get him connected with all of our department head staff leading projects and continue to move forward I guess you'll hear this a lot tonight by no surprise just the general increased cost across the board with inflation to do business so that budget's remaining flat any questions for mayor sorenson about the administrator budget seeing none all right thanks everyone thank you we will move right on to city development we will have our brand new city planning director director mcginnes kasey present good evening everyone and thank you I know all your answers but we'll do the best we can for six days on the job so um some of the things that we're experiencing for some of our current challenges is number one our website and just the ability for staff to maintain that website it should be our forward first thing that people as they come to our city likely are looking at and our website is very outdated and could use a lot of assistance making sure that we are being transparent to the public and just being a good resource and we too are dealing with some staff um and personnel changes so that always brings us share of some challenges uh some of our future challenges as I understand the building permit application was built really really quickly during the pandemic or at the beginning of the pandemic and it's not sustainable and so we need to look at what we can do there to have a more sustainable application process as well as implementing an online system to take payments so as it stands right now everybody has to come in and you know in person and pay and so we could gain a lot of efficiencies and staff time to do more productive things and be out in the field more if we had the ability to collect payment electronically as well as one of the things that I have one concern about is just capacity overall and maximizing grant opportunities and so we know that there's a lot of potential funding opportunities but having staff and capacity to look for all of those opportunities and maximize our our opportunities here in Sheboygan to get our fair share because it's at the end of the day if we're talking state and federal grants it's you and I's taxes that's paying for those and we want to capitalize on those and finally hurdles really is cross training having opportunity and time to cross train and succession planning and as I stand here tonight before you six days on the job there are a lot of things that I can't find because we haven't done a good job and taken the time sometimes in the day to really document what we do and so that's always a challenge and then we just have a lot of policies procedures and plans that are outdated and one of the things that mayor and I've talked extensively about is the comprehensive plan that we'll be really working on here soon but just in general as I've looked at policies there's a large opportunity for us to be putting some efforts into updating those as well so some of our known increases for the development side employment employee development some increases for conferences and memberships it's how our our staff stays current vehicles and parking expenses is a $150 increase in parking install rental fees and tools and equipment again as other departments have already talked about that it replacement schedule to keep all of our technology up to date the development department has no no additional requests on the building inspector side and as you can see I've lumped together our challenges all in one so I didn't separate these out by by the two different areas but for known increases for inspections vehicle and parking expenses as we all know those field charges continue to go up and so we need to make sure we're budgeting appropriately for that and then increase for the motor vehicle service fund and no additional requests on the building's side either do we have any questions for director mcginnis casey thank you see none all right thank you we will have the city attorney with attorney adams all right um first of all talking about our challenges um and the primary challenge that we really deal with is our workload um workload has increased tremendously over the years and not only is the workload increasing but the rate of increase of workload is increasing as well so every year we have a lot more to that increase we've done some things over the last couple of years we've purchased some software to help with that and and that does help but it doesn't necessarily solve the problem it's also led to some concerns of of burnout among my staff I'm I'm frankly a little concerned that continuing at the level that we're at we will probably lose some some staff because of that legislative changes as well uh mean that a lot of the systems and processes that are in place now for the city have had to change and our office generally is in the front line of assisting departments to to look at those processes and understand those changes so that that's an ongoing thing and then the heavy workload has really meant there's a couple of things that really I think our department should be doing that is not really happening currently in the way that it should be first is longer term strategic planning on on the legal side and second of all public outreach at this point neither of those things is really happening and frankly I think especially the first but also the second uh are really key aspects that our department should be doing and we just have not been able to do that because of of the workload so looking at known increases uh there are four items and almost like 95 percent of it is just one thing and that's contracted services so uh law view is the software that we are using for matter management uh and uh what you you may be aware of is that a couple of years ago we did get an increase in our budget uh to purchase software we originally purchased a software program called city law unfortunately at the same time that we purchased city law uh the company that owned city law decided to move from an on-site based program to a cloud based program and um I think it's fair to say they were highly unsuccessful uh and we had to fire city law um they just were not doing the work so then we moved to this new company law view uh there are some nice uh things that happened because of law view including the fact that we now have a way for other depart for all the department heads and some key staff in those departments to actually use the law view software to communicate back and forth to provide us information about requests that they're making and to communicate back and forth about those requests so it has been uh it's been a good program unfortunately it's fairly expensive uh and the cost for this year will be almost 25 000 more than the the previous city law software was there are a couple of uh small changes as well witness fees uh it's just a small increase based on 2023 projections I think what had happened is in 21 and 22 a lot more people were appearing remotely and we don't pay witness fees to people who just appear on zoom uh and now people are actually showing up uh to court which by the way is what we want because when our witnesses are on zoom it's it's not good um we need to have our witnesses in person so that's $150 uh employee development uh this is our fees in imla uh which is the international municipal lawyers association our fees in the county and state bar um and some conferences as well uh those have all increased our membership in the municipal attorneys institute for the state has stayed flat for this year so the total uh for our membership is 867 as an increase and then the increase in parking stall rental fees that I think you'll see from department to department as well that's just an increase of 360 dollars we do have one additional request uh so currently in our table of organization we have two full-time attorneys and a four-tenths part-time attorney uh now that person has not been working with us this year because we used that to pay for the switch over from city law uh to law view uh but we are requesting that that person be moved from part-time to full-time beginning in 2024 uh the cost that that number there of 82 000 includes the increase in salaries and benefits uh the increase in employee development and uh annual county and state bar fees we did not oh oh sorry there we go uh the when it was a part-time position there was no there were no benefits and uh we did not pay for any kind of employee development or any of the bar dues so that that would increase there that there is that please note there that future funding requirements are ongoing uh so a couple of things to note we what we did when we came up with this number is we looked at the current um in the table of organization right now we just have uh an assistant city attorney line item uh my plan actually in hopes to drop this number a little bit is we are looking at creating a second category we would rename the assistant city attorney that that that position that liz holds we'd call her the deputy city attorney she'd stay uh in the category that she is and we'd we create a category for an assistant city attorney with somewhat less responsibility than the deputy with the idea that with somewhat less responsibility it would be a somewhat smaller pay range of course we don't know exactly where that will turn out because if you you know if the person that we hire comes in with all sorts of experience even if they're lower on the pay range they may be higher and somebody in the other pay range who comes in really low might be lower but we do hope to uh decrease some costs uh by doing that but in essence it is uh to um have a person who can um to turn that point for a person to a full time their primary responsibilities as we see them would be prosecution but taking over all of the prosecution right now we're sort of dividing prosecution among different people in the office so that the the prior prosecutor did not do much with building inspection we're going to make sure that that our prosecutor is also expert in code building inspection type things we would also move a number of the issues around claims and some of the issues around licensing to to that person basically to open up time for the rest of us to work on some of the other things that that we need to do to keep up on any questions all the pro i'm just confused about that additional assistant city attorney that you mentioned that you make i did i understand correctly that you may want to create that in future but you did not reflect it right now so we want to include it so that's that's that increased amount from moving that person from being a part time to a full time right so that and that number reflects the current wage scale but we are looking at creating a separate wage scale for that person with somewhat lower responsibilities that we hope that would actually reduce that 84 000 to something a little bit less but we just don't know that at that time the only way to estimate is to use the current the current wage scale so it is still just to confirm that's just the increase from the pity to the full time from the part time to the full time from the part time to the full time that's the only thing that you're asking for right now as far as okay thank you all ready uh all there for like a penuski um what what does public outreach mean from city attorney's office so i think it means a couple of things uh first of all we do get a lot of sort of standard requests for information for sort of legal issues around the city and in recent years we've had to sort of push those off not we may answer them as they come in but we haven't done anything sort of big picture to make sure that people have answers to those questions so as as an example today we had someone who came in to ask about the process for trying to get a refund on their wheel tax because they believed they paid it improperly ideally we would already have sort of a how-to and and some worksheets and things that that people can do to explain in this case it's who to talk to at the dmv what what are the you know what will they even consider um and those kinds of details uh and so it's those kinds of things where people may have questions about very common legal issues rather than just having them email us and maybe we'll get to them you know at some point or having them call and leave voicemails and maybe we'll get to them at some point um this would be a way of being more proactive about that so so it's interaction between your office and the citizens in the community yes thank you all their cells are um so she answered the my first question and then my second question was um specifically about the position there is nobody currently in the part-time position correct that does that position does not exist that well it exists it is in the table of organization but there is no one filling the position at the moment when the prior so it's a vacant position right now it's a vacant position right now when the person retired we did not refill that position um and basically to pay for law view so now you're asking to increase of the 24 with law view of the increase that's on that and moving this part-time to full-time for a position right okay so the funds that were used for the vacant position you're now saying those are separate you won't you'll be spending more and asking for another person yeah so the the amount that we paid you know the increase in law view we had we would have had some of that money the cost of the part-time attorney was greater than 24,000 but yeah so it's it's maybe not an overall increase by 24 plus 80 whatever okay makes sense great thank you all right alder decker thank you chair um i guess my question about is um would this also then be a reduction in contracted services for like a debt like for like development agreements is there's going to be some reduction in some of that can you reflect that at all or really you can't really quantify it we really can't quantify that because we do over the last eight years we've really worked hard to reduce how often we're going uh outside for council and we have we've we've significantly reduced that over the years and that's one of the reasons why there's been an increased workload on on us internally um i don't anticipate that we would be able to say oh it's it's going to be this amount less but it would it does mean that in certain cases where we might have to go outside um we wouldn't necessarily have to do that but we can't quantify it okay thanks any other questions seeing none thank you uh attorney adams we'll now have it and cable director and our information director uh bushman good evening see if i can even work the remote okay so um current and upcoming challenges um obviously continued investigation of sorry uh current and upcoming challenges continued investigation investigation implementation of cyber security solutions uh so far the council has been fantastic in helping us fund a lot of new solutions but it's going to be an ongoing journey um with probably no end in sight so that is uh definitely one of our concerns also over the next two to five years the city will need to switch from on premise solutions to cloud-based solutions such as microsoft office 365 which will increase our operational expenses so typically in the past when we went out and bought software and ran it on our hardware that was on prem when we needed to buy new hardware and software we would take that out of the capital side um with the cloud-based solutions we'll have to come up with some new way of uh funding that or financing that that being said since i've started uh in 2019 one of the things i have been working on is increasing our budget to get to the point where we'll have enough in the operational expense side of the budget to pay for some of these cloud-based solutions that we know are going to be coming down the road to us then the third uh concern is succession plan i know you've heard that before but uh my crystal ball says over the next one to seven years three of the five IT staff may retire and that's you know always a concern when you lose that knowledge um and how do we plan the succession for that so going through through the changes in the budget um you know contracted services $80 um employee development going up slightly to 690 the phones and internet um some of that is just a natural increase that we see year over year for typically they're increasing you know somewhere in a three to five percent range for those services computer maintenance cost is going up $9600 part of that reason is in 2018 and 2019 we refreshed a lot of our hardware technology and when we did that we purchased five years of maintenance that maintenance five-year maintenance contract is expiring so now we need to go to uh new maintenance contracts and then software maintenance is going up 20,230 part of that is just an annual increase we see somewhere in the five to seven percent for our software expenses but this also includes uh $15,000 for the new hey gov um uh cloud application that we just recently purchased to support dpw's park rentals both slip rentals as well as the clerks licensing we do not have any additional requests at this time do we have any questions for director Bushman all their filiki panoski thank you you mentioned the hey gov software that is or is not included in this software increase it is included in the 20,000 software increase it is it is and that was roughly 15,000 or it is $15,000 a year for that um we did offset by going with the hey gov solution we were able to eliminate some of the other support maintenance we were paying for applications that we're not going to use any longer this is what finance committee talked about yes okay thank you all right thank you all their parola those nine thousand six hundred dollars for maintenance is that something only for 2024 because you mentioned the five years agreement and right we'll probably see that increase reoccurring every year into the future you know because we are going to need to typically we won't buy another five-year maintenance agreement typically we're looking at running the hardware five to eight years so at some point we'll go with a capital request to replace that and typically when we do the capital request we'll also build in a five-year maintenance to it so that is not for a five years those nine thousand six hundred for my ignorant i have no idea how much they cost so that is that just for a year that's for one year okay thank you you're welcome all right any other questions see none thank you director bushman we're going on the cable tv next so in in the cable tv budget no one expenses here the vehicle and parking expense is going up 200 dollars and then the phones is going up 698 dollars no questions on that um the additional request we are asking the council to approve uh basically a seven thousand dollar increase in temporary salaries and what we'd like to use that additional funding for is um to start rebroadcasting the local high school and lakeland college some of their sporting events uh the last time we did this was the 2018 into 2019 basketball season then we discontinued that and then called it yet but um we we was our our most popular uh watched uh broadcasting from the cable television perspective um so we're we're looking for you know roughly seven thousand dollars to bring that back and typically that's going to be about 30 30 sporting events it covers you know basketball football some softball some baseball alder filiki paneski thank you so the city is going to foot the bill to broadcast sporting events for the school systems that is correct thank you alder parola i was going to say i approve it only if you broadcast soccer as well scott alder rainy well i understand it was the most popular thing watched had since covid or now that we're in the in a way out of it um have you been getting a lot of requests is that something the community wants scott i'm gonna let scott jump in here because he deals with that side of the production if you can scott yes we have been getting uh requests or questions um i may be more accurate um hey i sure miss why isn't this on why why don't you do this anymore and so i guess that's sort of a request uh at least that's that's the way the the calls and emails and feedback has been coming in so it it is missed by the community all right alder decker so when you do this do you work with the school district i mean like the like the like their broadcast um classes and stuff like that so some of their students do some of this or is this just our people doing it once again i'll defer to scott since he's the one that was around when we did it before it's primarily our people but uh we certainly encourage student involvement and have worked with students before okay getting them scheduled is is a challenge just because of their availability they're very busy many of them are involved in the sporting activities that they're covering so they can't be on the field and running camera so okay but yes we we do work with the school district okay thank you any other questions seeing none thank you all right the presentation we've all been waiting for director bevel with public works you want to take a break or stand up and stretch before i start talking yeah i'll try to be brief i'll keep it under yeah i'll keep it under three hours this is a very important evening this is a great opportunity for a dialogue like this in the community the whole process to actually have the entire council present for budget discussions and feedback versus just maybe just the standing committee or our staff in the past so it's been it's been a nice a nice process so i'm going to start with something i think that is fairly easy and it's the wastewater treatment plant because this has zero impact on the tax levier in the general budget it's funded all through the fees at the wastewater plant now it's a very extremely important function of public works in our community providing water quality and cleanliness for our our our sewage but there's quite a bit of challenges that we're dealing with as you will see mainly the increase costs and chemicals it's a significant increase since the pandemic and moving forward some of the other challenges at the plant the plant is roughly a little over 40 years old and it has over the years had significant process upgrades but yet there's some age starting to show and some of the issues are the poor grit and rag removal at the head of the plant as the sewage comes into the plant and it has an effect on the aeration basins the sludge storage silos the digestors and pumps this type of material the more grit and and junk that you have if it gets into the system it just causes problems so the staff is constantly dealing with this when we talk about upgrades that will be in the capital improvement is what we're going to deal with that but tonight just wanted to give you a background in terms of operationally we're also catching up on efforts that were delayed by the vacancy of our process systems integrator basically this position was a micro technician that did a lot of our plc programming and network engineering for all of the computer systems at the plant for it so the plant could have good diagnostics and SCADA systems to provide monitoring and set points on certain certain activities that are important to be monitored we talked a little bit about the aeration tonight with the new blowers it's been an issue but also in with that just besides the blowers of themselves we're looking at some of the functionality of the basins and adding the dissolved oxygen back in for the water they we have an old digester complex from the original plant that was built in the roughly the fifties they're no longer in use and they're vacant and they're basically fallen apart and it could be space eventually for future long-range planning what can we do there you've heard it all night and you're going to hear it a lot in public works succession planning so wastewater treatment we're talking about some succession planning when we get to our additional requests you'll you'll have an understanding about that and lastly this has been an ongoing throughout my whole 10 year we know that there are agreements the plant is owned and operated by the city of sheboygan but it's a regional plant we serve the region via contract so we serve the village of colder city of falls town town of wilson town of sheboygan all via contracts those contracts were originally agreed to in 1975 with no end date and they're not in the most advantageous position of the city so there's always been how do we restructure how do we get through that well we're working on some processes and there's a new plan update for 2050 and during that process all of those parties will be at the table and there will be a great opportunity to start that dialogue and how do we make the overall agreements fair for all communities wrong direction so hopefully be able to see some of these going right through what is the known budget increases at wastewater again funded through their wastewater rates we're seeing an increased cost in consulting services bay lakes regional planning for instance they're doing the 2050 long range sewer service area plan we have other engineering services on our interceptor sewer project along the lakeshore that's ongoing so that's going to looking at about an increase of 40 000 dollars in the 2024 budget here we go with the chemical cost there's an additional cost of 240 000 dollars so the quantities have been pretty consistent so we're not increasing quantities and using more chemicals it's just the cost of the chemical itself for instance 23 percent increase for bleach 8 percent for sodium bisulfate which is used to remove the bleach and then 79 percent increase for ferric chloride that's that's a flock that helps attach the solids to the to the wastewater as well as polymer for when we use it in the drying process of the sludge these are significant increases and we're very limited in terms of suppliers so it's not like we can go shopping around these these are very specific types of chemicals that are used in in a very unique industry wastewater treatment so the next two are utility and the five percent is additional across and that's per per the budget guidelines that we've talked about hundred dollar 120 for phones contracted services this is with another contract with donahue and associates to again we need to study those aeration basins even though we're looking at new blowers how are they positioned how are the diffusers operating to their highest and best most efficient capacity so we're not adding too much oxygen in the evening when there's not a lot of demand but during the day when it is needed they can ramp up and how does that how does we put the control systems in to to better manage that i mentioned the the building is the plant is over 40 years old so we're we're seeing every year increased building maintenance items as well as the cost of building maintenance and supplies so we're looking at around a 77 thousand dollar increase just in terms of the building maintenance repair some of these items could be moved maybe into a capital outlet and what that would mean is it would be a one-time expense so would it necessarily be an ongoing expense so we're going to look at that and try to adjust that according to this process we have an a copy release and that is increasing for next year we talked about the it service fund erics department so we got to pay him so he can maintain his system and keep it up to date for us so a total overall increase of about 456 thousand dollars in our operating budget in our operating budget is roughly right around i'd say eight to eight and a half million dollars on an annual basis at the plant any questions about wastewater operations at this stage before i move on to the alder fulike peneschi thank you i'm looking at the budget line building maintenance and repair non-outlay items moved from 651700 so is it a new item or it just showed up in this budget and it came out of another budget i mean if you mind i'm going to have jordan from wastewater he's got a little bit more detail in terms of what he moved from that line thank you that's a great question so if you happen to look at the account number that's listed there that 651700 that's actually also listed as a separate line item at the very bottom of the screen essentially that is an outlay or a capital type line item so i checked with director crigger a couple weeks ago about just what kind of expenses should be included in that and she advised me that some of the things that i had planned to include in that outlay account really should be up in our operating expenses and so the four items that i list there in the in the light item that you're referring to switch gear testing you know that's not really purchasing a large piece of equipment digester cleaning same thing it's it's more of a service than a purchase and then dryer belts and wipers those are more maybe annual purchases that we make not a not a one-time purchase and so essentially based on that advice instead of including those purchases down in that last line item i moved them up to that operating expense line and that's where the increase in 77,000 came in so i'm still not understanding that 77,000 would normally have or formerly been included in other operating correct it would have increased that increase on the bottom line item there so there is an increase yes thank you and any other questions all ready excellent the other items as as we mentioned are our outlay and part of capital improvements and we'll be talking that at a future meeting so the additional requests that we're looking for at at the wastewater treatment plant deal with succession and reorganization in terms of preparing for the future we have currently two mechanics and a one one lead mechanic or a foreman in the area several of we two of them are approaching retirement age within the next year and given the complexity and the amount of enormity in terms of this plant in and of itself we're looking to bring on a fourth mechanic and that's what's being proposed the fourth mechanic would work side by side through a training program learning the operations understanding all the new nuances with operating and maintaining the plant with with the more senior mechanics when the retirement occurs we're not looking to backfill this would position would just move and it would not be uh if we would not stay at the four mechanics we would then go back to the original three but it's an opportunity for the mechanic to overlap with the more senior staff that they can partner with them in parallel learn on the job while they're still operating together so that's what that proposal is and that's why we're looking you know this is about four to five months we're anticipating we have nothing that I would say is is verified anything in terms but there is a potential for someone to retire next year that we're anticipating and again this increase in terms of the budget is totally funded at wastewater this does not hit our general fund so that's what this position would be for any questions with that all right moving on we're going to go right into the streets and sanitation division next this division is funded primarily through the general fund however there are some components that when I get to them I will explain are not but this is one of the largest divisions in the department of public works in terms of labor resources equipment and so forth and it's the department as you will hear over and over again we've been challenged with our resources and then and the limitations that we are faced with and this is limitation in terms of the ability to purchase the necessary materials and supplies in order for us to do our work as well as maintain and keep our equipment operating and lastly the labor forces that we have I you'll hear again succession planning and now you'll see that I have some positions that I'm going to be adding are requesting to be added and I just for context and in my tenure here I think at one point during my tenure and I've been here since 1987 I hate to throw that year out but I think we were at a high during my tenure right around almost 150 employees in the Department of Public Works as a more recently and when 2010 came through in act 10 we are roughly right around 130 and as of today we're at 100 all the while I think you've all experienced the city has grown we've added new areas to the city parks streets lights utilities so forth so it's been a challenge it's been a testament to the department and the labor that we have we've been able through the over these years acquire what I would say a skill set that is multi skilled and not basically a division of labor where one person's only doing one thing they're multi skilled so we have the flexibility to move staff around which has helped as well as the equipment that we've been purchasing over the year has increased productivity so even though we have less employees today versus where we've been we've been able to really meet a lot of the demands but we're at a critical juncture that it's not sustainable and we're going to be you're going to see through this budget presentation that we're actually starting to do less and it's doing it's becoming more and more apparent with the inflation factors that you're going to be seeing so in other words with with the staff being frozen and kind of where we at where we've been at you're going to see that over time has increased well we have more work to get done with the same amount of labor but it's going to take more hours so we're increasing our overtime to meet the demands street repairs sewer repairs so forth all of this is becoming more and more apparent and what we've been needing to do is add overtime now overtime is not a bad thing it doesn't add a person personnel and you don't pay extra benefits in terms of health benefits on on on overtime so you're getting increased productivity but you're not paying some of those additional fringe benefits necessarily so as though although you see it it it's a positive in terms of we're able to meet some of the productivity clothing allowance that that's a seven hundred uh dollar increase contracted services this is a big one in the streets department we contract out some of our our work we're not able we don't have the equipment probably the biggest thing is milling the asphalt a new asphalt mill is about a million dollar piece of equipment we're not going to buy one we can't justify it it's used maybe two or three times a year we contract that out but we're limited in terms of who the contractor is and at their mercy of their time so sometimes we'll mill in street and it will be like that for several months just because the contractor it's available and we have to be take it when it's available but those costs have increased significantly we've seen a 20 increased in their contracted rate since 2021 so therefore you see the 49 000 increase again traffic uh this is a contracted service for our traffic division within streets that was with we contract with the county highway department to do our line striping with their line striper there's a five percent annual contractual increase with our disposal contract with gfl you'll see that in several different items so that's a 2,500 uh dollar increase motor vehicle fund this is a a charge that we charge ourselves internally to fund the motor vehicle division very similar to the it department it department has a charge that we're charging our departments for their services we charge ourselves a motor vehicle fee for the vehicles the maintenance on them and the fuel so that's that's been contractually by budget instructions we've been increasing that about two and a half percent on an annual basis traffic control supplies this could be anything from street signs such as the vinyl to make the signs to stick on the aluminum the vinyl has increased 64 percent since 2020 sign blinks the aluminum 61 percent since 2020 construction materials this is the big big area in our streets asphalt concrete asphalt alone 36 percent increase since 2021 and that's and we buy a lot just through the county that's the county's increase when we have to buy contractually it's over 40 or over 40 approaching 50 percent increase so 52 000 dollar 500 increase in that line in them uh 500 dollars for an increase supplies minimal amount utilities again contract by the budget we're increasing them five percent for eight hundred seventy five dollars some tools and equipment increased to talk about cost inflationary trends of about a thousand so all overall just for the streets streets division area we're looking at 153 000 dollar 153 500 increase over 2023's budget questions about streets street repairs all their cells are i don't have a question specifically on this spreadsheet but what i'm having a hard time following we've been seeing sort of what the previous year is based on what your increase is and so right now you're showing the amounts on the second column and then on the third column it's saying revised totals and the totals don't even match so is this is that what you spent in 2023 so what what we did is i have the amount that we originally requested then we had a department head meeting we talked about this internally we revised some of these figures so originally we came in with 165 yeah we were now adjusted it downward we're at 153 000 so where where are your 23 numbers at then how can i see those because that's important for us to understand what the increase is based on what you spent the previous year what you're requesting i don't have it on this spreadsheet but i'm happy to share with you for instance contracted services that line item for instance we're increasing 49 000 so can you can you compile that for us and send it out to the alders by all means most of you have sent this right am i reading it correctly that the previous columns were that you've showed us 23 and then what with the increase was correct by all means great i'd appreciate that thank you because like for for the current year budget for construction materials it's at 200 000 yeah so we're going up 50 yeah that's that's important to see that so we can sort of understand understand the first column i'm like i'm i'm not sure i have i have that spreadsheet here it's not in the presentation but yes we will forward all that information to you it's a good i would i would agree for for contextual purposes to compare so additional needs so here we talk about succession planning within the streets division so what i what is being proposed here is approximately about a 15 000 increase in salaries and what it would do is we would take three existing positions within our current table of organization mainly maintenance workers and upgrade them to two equipment operators which would mainly be our equipment operators are masons or more skilled level type of work that is needed in the in the field for street repair as well as one heavy equipment operator position these would be upgrades in the purpose of upgrading is is that these are senior senior level positions and again we need to train and work side by side with the senior level to create a succession plan too often we have our more senior skilled employees get on to be an equipment operator heavy equipment operator and within four to five years they retire and then it sets us back because we don't have that skill set anymore we have to retrain we want to train side by side and create these positions so that we have the ability to train with them as well as then flexibility to move crews around too often when we only have two masons we only can have two two jobs going at the same time by adding two more masons we're adding additional capacity to do more jobs and stay up with the work so that's what this this proposal is doing it's not creating any new positions it's upgrading their level and creating that succession to train and get them to the higher skill set that we're going to be needing in the future the next section is additional needs again for streets but these i've highlighted differently because they these are one-time expenses that aren't going to be necessarily hitting they have an opportunity to maybe be funded through other other means within the budget and not necessarily with the tax levy so for instance on the upper right corner we the first one is a concrete sought 45 000 we're looking at a programmable message board for traffic control and road closures and it can be used for special events and other things as it's programmable to change the message that's a 25 000 additional request lastly we show in the bottom there is a trailer that would be used to better move our tracked skid steer loader from job site to job site we have it's it's available now it we have used a different trailer but it's that trailer is used for another department on a routine basis so it's not readily available to to be used on a consistent basis this the other two are low low priorities it would be a ditching bucket and a tooth bucket but there's potentially right there 120 000 that's part of the budget request that if it's moved potentially with uh as an outlay that it wouldn't be a recurring cost and it could be an opportunity to to help with the overall budget all their decor um on the electronic message board is this something that we sometimes contract out to like rent or in other cases is this would this be a cost savings of eventually if we over over time is is there how do you have a kind of an amount how much in a year you you you do you rent something like yeah we we we rent these routinely on large capital projects and other projects we have we had one board that is well probably of over 20 years it's very difficult to program and it's not reliable but yes this would help reduce some of that that contracted in other words renting it as well as it gives us a little bit or quicker flexibility in terms of a project where we have a road closed and it's pretty for an emergency case or something it gives us the ability to put it out and deploy it right away other known budget increases within the streets and sorry hold on hold on we have more right hold on on nope pro berber to flicky peneski got first great thank you thank you um this is a lot of numbers and it's a lot of comparison and it's a lot of items can you give us a ballpark estimate about how much you you lease and rent equipment as you need it versus we own it do you have a comparison i think we we can get a pretty good number on that rick is here from motor vehicle we do lease some some vehicles i mean all of our pickup trucks and small equipment is leased we we also some of the specialty equipment it's under contract so when we contract let's say when i mentioned the mill that's a it's on a contractual basis so although we're renting that piece of equipment it comes with an operator as well so it's kind of all in one other equipment that we've we've we've leased over the years is in additional um circumstances so we could provide a breakdown on that i'm i'm looking at it in terms of do you have a handle on where the cost savings are for leasing contracting owning and and there's a fine line between providing the services you provide and the cost of providing them do you do you have yes we do we routinely we routinely will look at the cost benefit on if it makes sense to purchase this piece of equipment what how often it's going to be used what's its value versus leasing it and leasing where we're determined we're finding that it's not always as lucrative or as advantageous especially for some of the specialty equipment we have just the financing and the leasing options with with that so in a lot of cases what we'll do is uh we'll rent we'll we'll because it's used on a limited basis and we know it's it's not going to be recurring ongoing needed so yes we we have a we'll we'll go through a process and we'll review that thank you all ready all their pro i was just confused about those three positions that you want to promote um you would not replace those so you would promote those position and positions without replacing them that's correct okay thank you already alderini um so let's say we had all of these like this fleet of cool stuff is that an opportunity for income can we rent it out to other communities that don't own these things we have we we will share we we have a kind of a cooperative agreement with the county highway department for instance they don't have a sewer vector you'll see that there'll be a picture of that piece of equipment it's a pretty specialized equipment it's used every day to clean sewers in the city of sheboygan the county doesn't never really have a lot of sewers and so they'll contract with us as well as maybe the city of falls and some other at times we'll for instance street sweeping uh not a lot of opportunity with the county necessarily to have a vacuum type sweeper they'll just have mechanical big broom sweepers because in the county they don't have carbon guttered they don't have to pick up the debris they can sweep it off so there's opportunities that we've shared and gained some revenue but most of the equipment that we have it's used and it's used heavily and it's and it's maintained and it's kind of long lifecycle of much of our equipment's 15 years before we replace it all right some more budget increases just in streets and sanitation again uh storm water storm sewer contracted services we're looking at some additional consulting fees with dnr required outfall testing so that's going up $15,000 next year looking at the motor vehicle service fund kind of mention it it's an annual two two and a half percent increase construction materials looking at an 18 percent increase in concrete costs from 21 for a $10,000 increase in the same so storm sewer budget line item is increasing $27,875 sanitation or garbage collection again gfl our contract automatic five percent increase next year so that's results in about a $15,000 increase in the budget and again two and a half percent increase for our motor vehicle charges for a total of $26,172 in that in that budget the next one is recycling this one does not hit the general fund or the tax levy this is an internal service fund so when you the recycling fund is funded through the recycling fee that is on your water water bill so we have some overtime in this line item and this is reflecting current trends within the sanitation division for recycling roughly $20,000 increase there looking at our transportation tipping again this is our budget with gfl that's five percent increase for $4,500 roughly equipment rental this is where we lease when we got all the carts for the community and deployed them we actually entered instead of buying them outright we were in a lease agreement with the company so we're leasing those carts right now so there's an annual lease payment that will be going up roughly around $5,000 and lastly again the motor vehicle fund we're charging ourselves 2.5 percent increase so recycling is increasing $35,292 additional needs this is up for consideration currently you know the the department we do the neighborhood cleanup where we'll have dumpster day we'll go to neighborhood associations we'll bring the dumpster route we'll bring a garbage truck we have the neighborhood bring their bulky items to the neighborhood area and we'll collect it and dispose of it very popular we get a lot of requests why don't you do that in my neighborhood or why aren't you doing it here so what this proposal would be is an additional looking at four times that we would do something like this for the community at large at the service building so we wouldn't probably do it in the drop-off site because the drop-off site is kind of tight but we would do it in the main parking lot on a Saturday and say to this Saturday we're doing bulky pickup bring your couch bring your chair a large item table we're going to take care of it for you so that would be this proposal so it would be an additional needs request of 8,000 for the dumpsters and 4,000 for the overtime to do that four times a year for the community so something to be considered all their decor would this then be in place of or in in addition to the near this is currently proposed to be in addition to okay all their cells are is there additional costs with having to get rid of those large items like that you're you're assuming that all of this is in the 8,000 yes okay so you're anticipating that that would be that like yeah let's just say that 150 people participate and they all bring a couch and a table we're assuming that the 8,000 is going to cover the couches in the tables for 150 people right well and again this was budget for four times a year so after the first one and it's like wow we might underestimate it or we might only be able to do two of these this year and look at how this could be accommodated in the future for next year or but yeah we're anticipating this is would be because when when we pay for the dumpster it usually has the disposal fee built in with the rental of it as well so that's what we're factoring this cost it but you're right if this could be so popular that we could get overwhelmed we may have to say well we only have enough in the budget for two times versus four other known budget increases again this is now the sanitary sewer collection system part of the streets of sanitation division so we talked about Jordan's plant now we're actually talking about the pipes in the street the pipes in the street are maintained by the public work staff at the service building again this this section of the budget does not impact the general fund it's funded solely through the wastewater rates it's a big portion of the budget we have over 170 miles of sanitary sewer literally about 5,000 man manholes for entry tremendous amount of infrastructure to maintain so we're looking again 50,000 dollar increase in contracted services and that's that's actually hiring contractors and specialized contractors in other words for with equipment or lining sewers for instance types of repairs that we're not able to do in-house our locate services so when you call diggers hotline to dig in your yard we have to pay for it we have to locate whatever is in the area so we actually contract with a service that will locate our sewers both sanitary storm as well as our electrical lines so we contract a service so when you call diggers hotline they get a ticket and say i'm going to be digging at 828 center avenue to plant a tree you got you have to wait three days to make sure everything's marked so what happens is that ticket gets called in and it goes to our contractor we don't do it ourselves and that contractor comes out and marks the marks whatever is in the area to say it's not here or you can dig here or don't dig here there's a sewer line or whatever our current contractor is underperforming and probably very soon will be no longer working for us so we're anticipating next year this new contractor that will be doing this will be an increased cost of a roughly around 10 000 it service that's for paying for eric in his in his computers we love eric he does a great job with that stuff still there you said you were going to take off okay uh motor vehicle fund again two and a half percent increase uh with that for the motor vehicles that are associated with this cost center and lastly get the construction materials to do the actual sewer repair again and we've talked about the increased costs of of the materials that we're facing with so this division is looking at it on a hundred and eighteen thousand five hundred dollar increase additional needs again uh we have some uh opportunities within succession planning within this division these are the two vector trucks these are very specialized pieces of equipment this director people yep all their cells are as a question i i do so we're 58 is what you're so if you go back to the last slide this is page 58 but 50 is the wastewater i'm just trying to understand how they're different from each other okay so i'm sorry i'm not i'm not following that's okay so the plant is it talked about we talked about jordan's plant that's a separate budget okay he runs the plant now so the administration is what the administration would be in engineering of of the sewer system this is now the sewer system as well as administration of the collection system all the pipes that are in in in our streets we manage those the department of public work sanitation and those are traditionally separate budgets it's a separate budget okay it's funded though again through the wastewater rates but it's managed in all the management of the collection system is managed with the labor and the administration portion at the service building the plant is with jordan okay thank you for clarifying that alder for the keeping us thank you further clarification that the sewers and the collection are not funded by general funds they're funded by wastewater yes thank you so when I talked about additional needs these additional needs will be funded through the wastewater portion where we're talking next and again talking about a little succession planning here we have we want to reclassify one position within the table of organization to create basically another equipment operator for sewer division this would help right now we have a foreman in this division that is operating on a daily basis and not able to do much planning and foresight in terms of the next scheduling of activities in terms of maintenance schedule route jetting cleaning and so forth responding to citizen requests in terms of checking on on complaints and issues so this would help us take one of our existing maintenance workers and just move them up into a class grade to operate this piece of equipment again work side by side with one of the operators and help with that as well the other position is actually creating a new full-time sewer operator position this would be funded again through the wastewater rates it doesn't hit the general fund we have two trucks and it's a two both both trucks are two person crews so what this would do is to give us four labor type of positions to operate in the field with the foreman actually responding to sewer service requests and scheduling the work and operating in terms of getting materials and equipment in the next daily schedules and work forecasted for them as i mentioned that person is now operating on a daily basis and not able to meet much of the the current backlog that we have in terms of citizen requests for sewer responses so that total additional needs in this area equates to roughly around 80 000 Alder Felicky Panesky thank you when we loan out our sewer vacuum cleaner to places that don't have as many sewer vacuums as we do do we loan out our staff with the piece of equipment we do and a lot of times we'll do it on a Saturday or after hours so it doesn't impact our need we want to make sure that it doesn't impact or disrupt our schedule so our priority is first and then we work with them to see when a good time is to accommodate their needs and those needs aren't aren't done a weekly basis by any means they're more like on an annual basis if anything and those those municipalities pay for our staff likewise yes we put in on a work order Alder Pirella this is perhaps more of a finance 101 and so maybe director Kruger you can help also so when we say that projects are funded by not the general fund but by the rates we mean the fees that we all pay for that service right so is there a so there is a projection of those rates for 2024 I assume or we base that on the rates of 2023 correct that's correct and they're they're being developed as we speak and we would hope through this process within the next few weeks we'll have a good projection on those rates based on these requests so I assume that the rates also okay you will tell us later what is the increase of those rates I assume there have been there is going to be an increase compared to the rates of 2023 if if they I am not sure it could be I don't know 10 to 15 percent increase but those rates so I would be interested in knowing how much if if we are going to spend only the increase in rates how much of those rates so how did we use it last year how come we have those funds available this year is that just because of the rate increase or because there is there are funds available from the rates of previous years and again I I apologize for the simple question just I don't I'm not sure what do we have been doing with those funds do we have funds from previous year's rates that make those funds available yes they're they're by by law and by the dnr we have to fund x amount for replacement of equipment at the plant so like for earlier this evening we used equipment replacement fund to buy those blowers in other words so it's that's what we're drawing from so and it's because that plant is so important these funds that are set aside are for just this purpose so the rates do have excess capacity in them for to help have a fund balance for those types of needs as what would be unanticipated as well as planned needs as well we have and as we will hear in another meeting when we talk about the capital improvements you'll see that we're going to propose to use much of the fund balance in order to use that funds to to make the planned improvements versus going out and increasing more rates to get more money or borrowing the money at the plant so I we're not anticipating a large increase in the wastewater rate Jordan and I had that talk and our plan is to be fairly conservative and again we're going to adjust and start putting some of these numbers into the there's a we have a spreadsheet and it's called a rate tool that we go through we want to go through that with these numbers now and be able to come back to you and what I would think and I don't want to speculate because that rate tool is is very complicated so but I but I would not say it's going to be anywhere like 10 or 15 percent increase even though you see some large numbers here again the overall wastewater budget when you look at the plant plus the administration and collection system it's around a $10 million budget so it's a it's it's a big budget sorry all their decor thank you just a real quick I just want to clarification so any kind of improvement that we are anything anything increases that we do on this part of the budget that also has to um any rate increases have to go through the public service commission correct not for wastewater oh it doesn't we are we are regulated under public service commission but the rates can be set locally for wastewater director Kruger there is an ordinance I believe that comes forward though for the rate change to this to the council so you would see that before the budget gets approved and those rate changes happen thank you if there is enough if there are enough balance funds we could also not increase potentially they're within in this budget there are items in here that for instance if it's a one-time expense some of the equipment and some of those items those are eligible to use the fund balance the fund balance can't be used for let's say operational or labor so that becomes part of the operating budget that's part of the rate that gets so there's two components we have the fixed charges and the variable charges within the budget so um I think when we get a little closer when we have that calculated we'll be able to pull those out and show you what is eligible to use the fund balance and that could help reduce keep the rates low and what opportunities are going to be added to the rate in other words I mean just to confirm the operational expense expenditures of the wastewater facility are paid by not by the general fund but right but by the rates correct correct okay okay any other questions already all right public works facilities and traffic division some of our current and upcoming challenges especially in traffic are the new rules and of sign and traffic painting reflectivity as resulting in increased frequency of painting as well as sign replacement traffic signal and street lighting infrastructure upgrades they're continuing and are in frequent repair due to accidents just a statistic I'm going to give the council this evening we almost average one street light or traffic signal knocked down per week in this community with an accident so that takes our two electricians to get out replace get that pole replaced and put it back up it's quite a bit of time just just to maintain the stuff that is damage due to vehicle accidents and so forth and again a challenge that you've heard routinely this evening I don't want to continue labor but it's important huge increase in material costs in this in this area other challenges for our facilities that was just traffic facilities now with the buildings many of our buildings are 50 years and older and constant need of repair and maintenance the cost to maintain these facilities continues to rise the longer we defer projects they only get more expensive and they become larger because they continue to add and build upon the deferred maintenance as well as we talked about the cost of materials and supplies they're increasing far outpacing our budget so here's some city buildings and when I talk currently when I say city buildings in this department this is really city hall and the municipal service building that you see right in front of you this evening so we have some overtime increase we have a basically increase of 6000 that we're anticipating for staff the contracted services again this is where we have to contract trade work that we can perform in house could be especially you know plumbing electrician even though we have two electrician they can't meet the current demand and our service motor vehicle service so they contracted services like I will back up $14,500 we're looking at an annual increase motor vehicle sun fund you've heard that before two and a half percent the building maintenance repair just cost of goods we originally had when we were talking about this in in-house we said that we we got to really bump this up we're not meeting the needs we backed it off we cut it by 20 000 we're coming in now with only 30 000 this evening utilities again talked about that's throughout this whole thing 5% increase janitorial supplies 46 46% jump in cost since 2020 so overall looking at around $59 000 in no one budget increases for building maintenance for city hall as well as the service building civil defense this is our emergency warning system minimal increases here mainly utility in the and the motor vehicle fund street lighting again there's some overtime associated with this a lot of it's in response to those accidents to go out and secure and turn off the power to make sure it's it's safe motorist vehicle sun fund is increasing two and a half percent as well as the increase for utilities so a total for street lighting roughly around 17 800 yeah just just just to you know your our utilities they increased 5 percent so it went up 15 000 roughly our annual budget is about 300 plus thousand dollars just for electrical for street lighting in the city just put that in context additional needs this is a new position we're actually requesting within the city department of public works and it would be a labor position this position primarily is to meet the needs in the buildings and grounds and facilities traffic division uh mike will miss and his team have been struggling and primarily it's as you for recall the budget we had you know city hall and the service building but mike's division gets routinely requested from other facilities which i fully support we have the police station all the fire stations the transit building the mead public library they're all city facilities so at some point we as a council and a community have to figure what's the best way to manage all of these facilities on a comprehensive level basis because right now the police department has their facility they budget accordingly fire department they have their facilities they're trying to maintain transit again and the mead public library and if we can do something more comprehensively on a planned approach and have it more uniform in terms of how we address these needs i think we'll be better off in the community will help um you know save in terms of planned planned and better maintenance activities is prevented of maintenance over the long term so that's what this position would help with is we routinely have to pull resources from different areas to respond to things throughout the city in either our buildings or even in in the streets for traffic issues so that's about a 60 000 added value to the budget in terms of that position not only would it be dues there but we also have other needs within the department since it's a general labor position we would use this person as a floating labor to be used anywhere within the department of public works on an as needed basis if available some of the other additional needs that we're looking for and again uh some of these these that are highlighted could be moved into what i would call a capital outlay or a one time one time expense so it wouldn't be an ongoing impact to the budget so we have traffic control supplies we we talked about the sign and the need to fabricate signs and be on top of that and replace them we actually our current applicator that applies the vinyl to the aluminum signblanks it's old it's 30 years old it's unsafe there's no one replacement parts we need to purchase a new one it's 25 000 we have a work boat mainly for dock repair electrical repair water line and also infrastructure replacement we are currently using the pontoon boat that we have at the marina and it's roughly uh i'd say it's a 1970s vintage it's kind of it's kind of rough but uh it it's something that in terms of what we do especially with the bridge and in some of the outfalls it's something that we're looking to um again use for department this would be again one time expense then other ones are some tools and equipment that we've got here a cable and pipe locator as well as a drain snake camera we also had in the budget originally 75 000 for a journeyman electrician and after talking a little bit more internally we just felt that given the market and where the trades are with journeymen we'd be very hard pressed to recruit someone i guess at our rate that we have internally for journeyman electrician at the city it'd be very hard to recruit so we decided we're going to pull that out so that's a savings of 75 000 but as you saw earlier we increased some of our contracted services because we know we're going to have to contract occasionally with a journeyman electrician to do certain work for us that we just cannot have the capacity to get to any questions in this section move on no another increases within this division boat ramps again these next two are not affecting the general fund their internal service funds or special revenue funds so they don't hit the tax levy boat ramps is a very minimal increase we're looking at 1800 or roughly 1900 and mainly it's cost of goods to do repairs of about a thousand additional and then it's just the utility increases that we've been talking about and ultimately the marina there we have a pretty large increase for marina operations and again that's for going to be up for study and we'll be talking about that along with this budget process of what the future holds and what do we want to be doing at the marina long term parks and forestry current challenges it's again this this division is challenged since 2010 with the shortfalls of labor and full-time staff with our constraints i just give an example for example during during the year we it takes full three full three full-time staff are needed just for the garbage in our parks and we roughly pick up 200 tons of garbage in the parks on an annual basis that's 400 thousand pounds of garbage just in our parks we have 17 facilities 24 playgrounds 36 parks two miles of beach to maintain and we during the winter time they'll plow and maintain 26 miles of sidewalks and trails and it's all done with 10 full-time staff in the parks division forestry division continues to be challenged with the air mold ash borer we have a significant backlog since last year storm although we i am so proud of the department and their response to last year's storm and the amount of cleanup that was able to be performed by everyone in the department not just forestry but everyone contributed but nevertheless it really set us back in the forestry area to maintain and keep up with our urban forest so we you know we have still 20 thousand trees in our community we have four arborists for 20 000 trees so they have to trim they have to remove they have to plant they have to grind the old stump as well so there's a significant backlog that we are dealing with and the goal is to now with any new tree that is planted that we trim it once every eight years so they have the proper training pruning so that as they get older they don't have leaders in different branches that become dangerous and can snap off as we experienced this last last year with some of our more mature trees so what are our known budget increases in the parks again 25 000 in contracted services if we're not going to increase labor significantly we have to then backfill with other areas such as contracting with some of the special needs so we're looking to do some landscaping and some other areas that just need attention that have been overgrown and we're not able to manage ourselves with our current staff so that's where this 25 000 would come into play again the next two real easy 2.5 for motor vehicle charges our operating supplies of is up is increasing 10 10 000 topsoil has gone up 20 12 excuse me 12 percent in 20 since 21 and the amount of topsoil needed since where we're doing better job of removing our stumps our topsoil has increased as well building maintenance repair we mentioned our park shelters and we have 11 park buildings that need new roofs right now they're listed here i'm not going to read them because i'm taking a lot of time and i want to be conscious of that i apologize but we have a big budget and we have a lot of different activities that we do in there in our community again five percent for utilities for electrical it's the same from maywood the equipment maintenance roughly a five thousand dollar increase and there's chemical costs associated with that as well we talked about chemical costs earlier it's it's been a ongoing issue increase cost and electrical repairs and upgrading to efficient led lights we we've been doing it with our street lights throughout the community now we need to get into our parks and and get led high efficient lights to help with the ultimately the energy consumption and ultimately we have some employee engagement for and forecasted tuition reimbursement within the parks division as well as supply costs for janitorial so overall you know we we were look roughly looking at a 99 uh thousand dollar increase the biggest reduction was under equipment maintenance we had a 50,000 55 thousand dollar increase originally we put some of that since it's going into equipment and we're looking to put that more into the capital will be for capital purchases of playground equipment moving forward and not put it on annual operating budget additional needs okay this is the other full-time regular position that we're requesting within the department of public works as just a general labor position as i mentioned parks they were they have only 10 full-time staff to meet and one of the big issues is we have a park fore foreman that um because of the the the capacity of where we're at is on a mower most of the summer and not able to get out and for and get work set up and get things planned as accordingly so we're we're not utilizing their existing staff in their fullest capacity so that this position again would be a tremendous need in that area again being an entry-level labor position this position could be used throughout the organization as is needed for uh working with that uh throughout the organization the other one would be an upgrade it's five thousand dollar upgrade we we we don't have a lead arborist that's in the field tim bulls our city forester but he's not actively monitoring their daily production he's meeting with citizens he's looking at other tree issues throughout the city looking at problems and getting things set up that's his job that's what he's out there to do so our crew in the field needs needs at least one of the more senior needs to be compensated for leading and directing those we have a young crew now we through retirements we've lost uh three of the four that we have so we have one person that's a senior arborist and the other three have been within the department within the last year so that's the other little issue that we're having is with their their inexperience they're a little bit slower than what we had in the past as last year with it for instance with the storm event the other areas that that would be a significant increase in the parks is our seasonal staffing we're looking to acquire what I would say is a higher level skill set than just employees coming into cut grass we have for instance during the summer our beaches we could have we have a beach cleaner that is pulled by a tractor it's a specialized piece of equipment but it's a seasonal operation if we could find or recruit someone either that has that type of skill set that is willing to work during the summer and be paid at a higher rate that we can trust that's what we're proposing in this area is to find basically I don't want to say a retired person that would come back but anyone that has the capacity to work part-time or doesn't want to work full-time anymore and wants to be able to still use their skill set the other proposal in here would be with this set with this increase in salaries for temporary salaries is to look for someone that would be the concept would be like a park ranger and basically it'd be a ambassador to our parks that could help and monitor the beach in the lakefront area primarily with our park rentals as well as just monitor activities and encourage people to be in their best behavior maybe encourage them not want not let your dog off the leash and take away maybe or help not take away but help with the police department and other activities it's not a high priority they're not we don't want to waste police and other resources to respond on stuff that we think that could be handled with maybe an ambassador someone that can get out and talk to people and just be present in our parks but have enough have the ability to have some authority as well if needed so that's something it's a concept we're still developing but we we want to have at least the discussion on the benefits of such a position and again it would be a seasonal during our peak season when we have a lot of tourists in the area and our beaches and our parks are full so all of those additional needs is roughly 102 thousand dollars 15 500 is for the aerator that's just a piece of equipment we have 325 acres of open and green space and we're not be we don't have this piece of equipment to aerate our parks again one time expense it might not be able to could be funded with other opportunities our cemetery cemetery it's increased cost of our contract and services again we recruit and hire a lot of seasonal to maintain and cut and keep the cemetery manageable during the summer summertime as well as we have some future needs in new plots to be laid out as well as cremation spaces within the cemetery so overall we're looking at roughly about a 10 thousand dollar increase it was originally around 23,000 we cut backs significantly we reduced it by about 10,000 the contracted services any questions about the cemetery alder decker um the cemetery is is it solely on taxpayer dollars or is it running its own fund how is it how what how does it take care of it's taxpayer dollars but there is a perpetual care fund that is set aside but it's and i'm going to defer to katelyn i believe the that perpetual care though is regulated we're not able to use that fund necessarily to fund operations we can use a portion of the income or interest earned is that the correct way of me yes that's correct there is a cemetery perpetual care fund where the dollars have to stay within that fund the interest that is earned throughout that uh throughout the year is done um there's a one-time transfer done each year to move that to the general fund to help supplement and offset some of the costs in the general fund but it doesn't cover the full cost of it but we do charge for um some of the burials and those types of fees we do have fees associated with the actual plots and burials that do get passed on to those who unfortunately use them so we we we have a charge for internments and that's now we we contract that workout in other words we used we used to dig the graves with our own staff and everything with the retirements and over the years we significantly downsize the cemetery operations we used to have four full-time staff at the cemetery we're down to one and then that person manages the seasonal so what we'll do is we'll work with the funeral directors and and when there's a burial we'll contract with a contractor that comes in with our excavator digs the grave we help with the internment there's a fee with that but that fee is directly passed through through the funeral so it's not so really our cost is the cost of maintaining the cemetery grounds and maintaining the plots themselves with a full one full-time person and the seasonal motor vehicle division hopefully this one should go fairly quick because this does not again impact the general fund it's an internal service fund so all those members those two and a half charges percent increases that funds this division but this division has challenges so much of the equipment is reaching the end of its service life it needs constant repair maintenance and this constant repair maintenance is getting more expensive every year as well as the repairs because the equipment's older are becoming more labor intensive and substantial so it's taking longer for things to get repaired so most importantly tonight with this division we're requesting another certified truck mechanic because we've been operating for a short one mechanic in this division for approximately I would say since 2010 so what are known increases we have some clothing allowance that we're adjusting a hundred dollars there's some employee engagement again these are pretty small the increase the motor vehicle service fund actually pays its own fee for its equipment oils and lubricants is increasing 10 000 vehicle maintenance and repair this is the big one it's 85 000 increase and again that's as of this point through six months this year we've used 65 percent of that budget and we show that we need another 15 to 20 percent increase in in just the repair line items and ultimately the motor vehicle fund also pays for the computer and it service fund so this fund is looking at no one just the known increases about 106 500 000 106 500 the additional needs this is where we're requesting a certified truck mechanic this goes back we you know the fire department had a mechanic that was at the fire station the headquarters years ago when that person retired the decision was made to shift the fire equipment to the service building for repair then we had approximately six mechanics over time with retirements in that we've lost one and now we're like I said we're at five so given given the nature of not only our own equipment but in addition with the fire and the need to prioritize fire equipment basically ambulance and our rigs we need to make sure we have a dedicated mechanic to be responsible and be able to turn that around and make sure we're keeping their rigs on the road as well as in times of emergency within our own department especially during snow operations we're running around the clock with four mechanics and one service mechanic and at times it becomes unsustainable with the amount of repair to keep our snow fleet on the road doing their doing the work that is needed to keep the city clean any questions about that request all right we're at the end getting there public works administration and engineering biggest challenges here talked about it all night a little bit about resources but succession planning myself and the city engineer our nearing retirement and it's imperative that we address this fairly soon we need to get a smooth transition of leadership in place this past year the administration engineering has a huge void we had in a retirement of an employee that has served with the city 50 years in addition me as well as the city engineer have a combined 66 years of service to the city of knowledge of infrastructure history that type of uh internal uh history knowledge of infrastructure and engineering and past development projects so it's vital in terms of this to be transferred to someone for the next generation to understand and have this background especially in in decision-making that's upcoming so some of the known budget increases that we have is over time we've adjusted it slightly it was 17 five now it's 15 this is for some of the administration staff engineering personnel mainly on projects that they're inspecting in the field clothing allowance $100 there's the IT service fund this is a big big number but this is part of Eric and in his department their whole consolidation of how they've charged we decided to say it's the best to put it all under administration for the for the entire department motor vehicle fund a small charge there tools and equipment mainly for some computers contracted services this is an area where between the city engineer and and my my office that we hire consultants traffic studies wetland delineations geotechnical soil borings some of that that type of specialty engineering we don't have in-house so we have to contract that out given given the amount of interest in the city in terms of development projects road projects that we have planned we just experiencing an increased uptick in in this type of level of contracted services and ultimately to tuition reimbursement we we talked about some new employees as well as getting training and and help with them moving forward so looking at a total we had originally thought it was 147 it's now down to 122,000 in this area which would be my my area administration as well as the full engineering department additional needs I'm requesting a deputy I was the deputy for probably 15 to 18 years and before I became the director it was never never filled hasn't been filled since well 2011 when I believe I I was appointed as the director we've always had a deputy it's very important even though I have superintendents they have needs every single day that they're routinely and I think they can vouch that they're in my office asking for questions advice what's going on I'm happy to help but some of the daily type of activities becomes overwhelming where I should really be focusing more on long range types of strategic plan capital improvements and making sure we are prepared for the future so that's what this request is the other thing is we got a plan for the future every other department has at least somewhat of an assistant or a deputy in in in their TO department doesn't have that department of public works that is I show this picture here because I also want to talk about the engineering staff the gentleman on the right was Vic 50 years of service we have Ryan 30 years myself 36 and then Jordan's also an engineering 32 34 roughly I don't know exactly but he's been there of just about as long as I have it it's been a pleasure and an honor to serve in this community and be part of a team that has been here for that long a time it I think it's it's kind of unheard of and it's just been awesome and just wanted to share that with everybody but my fear is is when we decide to leave someday and I'm not not announcing anything tonight don't think that's what this is about but I want to be as a leader and as a director I want to assure that when I leave that the department is in good hands and is prepared that it's going to be functioning just as good if not better when I leave I want to set it up for success I don't want to leave and have it fail and have the burden fall on this staff because this staff is burdened enough with just their day-to-day responsibilities let alone picking up the director the management of the department the other issue is when for an engineering I had actually it was like adding a position of an assistant city engineer there is an internal candidate I feel strongly that has already been somewhat mentored and has taken a lot of initiative to probably fulfill that role so it could be potentially a promotion versus an added position if we so desired to continue this discussion but it would create an assistant city engineer to help with that transition for when Ryan or the city engineer retires and moves on again setting up that opportunity to transition the leadership so that it's successful for the next next round I'm going to end with that all ready we have a few questions Alder Fulikipineski thank you um there were several subcategories to your report understandably can you give me a number of how many full-time equivalents are in this budget additional full-time equivalents what I I I will um what I'd like to oh I just did I oh boy and if you don't have it right away you can provide it well two two of them for sure were the labor positions those were general fund as well as the deputy position would be general fund with the caveat were probably about 25 percent of that salary could be funded with wastewater because currently my salary is 25 percent because I oversee the wastewater the deputy would have that some whatever role with that as well the the mechanic that we talked about in motor vehicle we funded under the motor vehicle fund not general fund what's the total total for the department well I'm trying when I'm trying to do is I'm trying to distinguish how much is hitting the general fund as new positions I don't care about that now I just want to know numbers of bodies okay let's see two labor's deputy mechanic four guys we had six at one time it's down to four okay thank you all their cells are so I know we went through several of these you'll be sending out a revised one um that's just going to have the 2023 yep and I would please just include the revised budget I don't want to see what you submitted the first time and what significant what the difference is right so 23 what the actual request is and the variance of it so that we it was really difficult to follow without having to see those numbers so there were nine other departments that went ahead of you that did that so if you could if you need a reference or I think maybe Caitlin might have sent something out I'm assuming understood I I totally get which are which are requested I see and we'll take out the original we're just going to go with the revised number with the 2023 budget so you can the variance yep and the variance total because it's important for us to see how much of an increase that really is and for those who are going on the 11th that's important too so please make sure to include the 2023 what your revised budget is in the variance in order for us to see this any other questions seeing none our next schedule meeting is September 11th 2022 do I have an emotion to adjourn motion made in second all those in favor all those opposed eyes have it we are adjourned at 8 43 p.m. thank you everybody