TMROUGHIN SALUDA,N.C. SHEGNAR  City of Saluda Board of Commissioners  SPECIAL CALLED BUDGET WORKSHOP Minutes  Date Time Location  5/28/2024 05:30PM  Saludal Library Chambers Room  1-C Call to Order  Mayor Morgan called the Budget Workshop to Order at 5:30 Pm May 28th 2024  2-F Roll Call  Attendance was taken Present was Commissioner Talbot, Commissioner Walker, Mayor Morgan Commissioner Marion, City Manager Steven Orr, Assistant City Manager & Finance Officer Julie Osteen, Chief Price, City Clerk  Pam Waters, Commissioner Oxtoby came in at 5:33Pm. 3-E Budget 2024-2025 Discussion  Assistant City Manager & Finance Officer Julie Osteen went over version 1 oft the budget and answered questions. Thisi is version 1 of the budget workshop for 2024-2025 there is a couple things want to bring toy your attention. This budget does reflect the actual State retirement contributions required for employees. There was a 17.2% increase in property liability across the state. That increase is reflected here: as a result the City's property liability increased by $7,200.00. This budget does include Jana's requested $12,500.00 feei increase over her previous 20,000.00 contract amount. This budget reflects attorney fees of $32,500.00. The current cost ofl living budget based on thei federal guide linesi is 3.2% thati is what is reflected int the salary ranges presented int this budget. The Appropriatedi fund Balance thati is needed to balance the General fund balance with the adjustments that we. just discussed is 198,590.00 of that 58,000.00 is accrual vacation which we have to budget even ifv we spend it or not. You will see on page 21 the current property tax levy fori the projection of 994,000.00 that reflects only what we can budget based on prior year collections. For reference purposes, I have adjusted the 91 Henderson County residents att the Henderson County rate plus our current fire tax rate. So the tax rate for Henderson County is 56.1 cents per 100 versus 69 cents per 1001 for Polk County. Idid speak with thet finance officer at Henderson county they are not increasing thet tax levy for thel budget year of 2024-2025 itv will stay at 43.1 cent per 100 added without firet tax. This budget does not include the additional fire tax that thei fire department is asking for. They sent me the information on Wednesday sol didn't addi to this budget. The fire department is requesting an additional $0.01 increase which would bea approximately 15,000.001 that they are asking for. Thei information they gave doesn't really tell why they are asking  fort that increase. Other than Polk County has approved a 14 cent tax rate for them.  Mayor Morgan' What did we give theml last year?  Wer matched Polk County lasty year. Which they were at 13 cents we brought them up: 2 cents to match the Counties Commissioner Talbot don't they usually come in and present itt to us and tell us what they are wanti iti for? They didn't request a meeting, they just emailed this to me ands said we want another cent.  13 cent. Now they are asking for 1 cent that would add 15,000.00 to thel budget.  SPECIAL CALLED BUDGET WORKSHOP. 5/28/2024    Commissioner Marion ist that to match one oft the counties?  What the email said was Polk approved 14 cents. Wer matched the 13 cent but we were at 11 cent. Commissioner Oxtoby why don't we go % cent because we are county and cityi ifanything. but that would goi in line one and line fours so it would be ar net: zero effect to the budget. Commissioner Marion on page two what is line 21 (rent)? And wheni its says as amended?  It's not reflectedi int this budget because Ididn't geti itu until Wednesday. Ifyoul look on page 5 you will see the fire breakdown it showsi it would be 14,227.00 Ij justr rounded it upt to 15,000.00 in my discussion. That's not reflected here  Thati is the Pavillion rentals. Rightr now we are at $750.00 in rental income. Butt the' "As amended" column shows the  amount through thel last budget amendment. Commissioner Marion the 160,000.00 on sanitation line  The 160,000.001 is an estimate because Ia am taking what we have currently and adding an estimated increase based  ont thet federal COLA. lestimated: a 3% cola for December when GFL increases their rates.  Commissioner Talbot do wel know how much this is per house hold? how many carts the residents have. Businesses pay a different rate. Mayor Morgan we talked about getting someone else. They can't beat the price. Maybin's is 29.50 in Hendersonville.  Wel have around 671 residents. Itis 22.80 per household per month for one bin and one recycle bin. It all depends on  Paget twot the Powell Bill line is increased to match what we received thisy year. Thati is reflected as an equal expense ont thel Powell bille expenditure side toi increase that over the 3200.00 we gotl lasty years budgeted rate. We don't budget anything from line 27t to 37 until we receive those we just don't! know ift they are coming in. Idid get an email from North Carolina Capital Management Trust that stated that the Federal Reserve was goingt to keepi interest rates where they were atl leasti fort ther next six to nine months. Investment eamings should! be able to  exceed the 45,000.00 budgeted here. Total Revenues fort the General Fund are 1,648,948.00  Page three of Administration thes state retirement for non-police officers are 13.65 %1 thati is the mandated state retirement match for all other employees. For Police officers iti is 15.04% for 2024-2025. You will see that general government salaries fort the administration department whichi includes yourhealthi insurance, workers comp, all of those expenses total 407,202.00if you want to see the breakdown of those salaries they are on page 158 & 16 and are Line 10 the 77,510.00 includes thei increase for. Jana, an additional 3,000.00 for the audit RFP increase that was already approved in January by the commissioners, surveying andI Engineering services that may come up thati isn't Line 18 has been increased" to cover the subscriptions, copier and IT for the Police and general govemment to reflect Line 34 Thave increased the maintenance I'm anticipating as slight increase in our cleaning contractor we haven't heard from them but are assuming an increase so if he does request additional it willl be budgeted. This budget does have 5,000.00 budgeted for Coon Dog Day int the event donations and sponsorship doesn't come in. This ist tentative only- ift the TDA doesn't have enough top payt that. That may or may not be an expense of the city. The total general government! is 626,099.00 before we go on youy will see: salaryt transfer to waterl did decrease that this year for 2024-2025 because int thep pass we! have covered 50% of Akaisha's time and 30% of the city manager's position as administration of water related expenses but ift the City of Hendersonville does accept ther merger  listed by person by department. tiedt to as specific project. the contract with Sharp.  SPECIAL CALLED BUDGET WORKSHOP- - 5/28/2024  2    regionalization we will have to start phasing that out. Preparing ahead for that. The amount is less than last year's Int they police budget you will see thes state retirement mandate is 15.04 % plus we are mandated to give 5%1 to 401k even ift they don't participate int thep plan for law enforcement. So that 15,100.00 reflects all oft the police departments beginning in. July fort that 5% 401kr match and state retirement amounts. Dues and Subscriptions reflects the! body Thel Fire Department based on the current levy is 13 cents per 100 this budget reflects 184,000.00 based on thel levy plus the city has always reimbursed the fire depart fort the water uses andi iti is in our contract ofs service agreement. In January! Iwill be looking ati that 12 month average and adjusting it int the July budget either up or down. This budget Int thet transportation budget 154,200.00 that represents the contract we have fori the street maintenance as well as The Powell Bill thisi is only what we have received ini this year's revenue 32,388.00. I'm estimating we won't get less On the sanitation the 160,000.00 what we will spend through June is 154,700.00 with a 3% cola is wherel 19 getr my The Debt service City Hall amounti is the amount we received from the state of NC asi it relates to thet first citizens On the Cultural and Recreation department we have 79,491.00 oft thatl have budgeted 12,000.00 in general maintenance on McCreery Park, 7,000.00 for McCreery park bathrooms and cleaning and 7,000.00 Pace Park Bathroom maintenance and Cleaning. Thet tennis courts we always budget something for other parks int the city as  $55,000 reduced to $25,000.  cam, IT and Sharp contract. The poliçe department budget is at 548,360.00  reflect a1 13% levy firet tax. It doesn'tinclude the 14,000.00. ther mowing plus some additional side walk repair.  than that we may get slightly more. Depends on how thes state's budget falls out.  160,000.00  debt on City Hall. No change there.  maintenance Ihave 5,000.00 between the tennis courts and the other parks. With thel Librarylmay! have to adjust the propane depending oni the price. going to happens with the merger regionalization study  The public works! I still have that budgeted forf four people as a buffer to keep the city covered until we see whati is The Insurance premium is based on what wel have received from blue cross! blue shield which is switching to Aetna in July 1st for the whole state. As what we have received there won't be an increase with Blue Cross Blue Shield or vision and dental that we geti from Municiple insurance trust, but wel haven't seen anything on changes due to Aetna sol I added al buffer to cover an increase in premiums. The workman's comp numbers are based on actuals. The bufferi is an estimate of15% since we aren't sure of any change yet. The General Liability Insurance last year's premium was 24,892.00 this year's premium willl be 35,912.00 thati is the 17.2% increase over last year's property The general fund budget there are only one or twoi items I'm waiting on fors some final numbers. The water sewer number that we have are pretty much seti in stone the only thingi is Thaven't heard back from is Adam to heari if there is a water rate increase from Hendersonville. Asy you can see the revenue and expenditures are. zero. Currently the budget reflects no increase in water rates. We are able to meet the current expenses that represents four employees. We may have two we may have three. The one thing that wantedi to bring to your attention is Ididi included in this budget water of 160,000.00 with the water leaks they have worked on int thel last month and al half we can meet that budget. Our debt services for water and sewer are the same as itv was this year with the exception of 265.00 of additional interest. In 25-26 we see our first increase in USDAI loans but that's another year out. When Steve and were originally talking about the! budget we were talking about the merger regionalization if the city ofH Hendersonville does decide to dot this itwill probably be over at two to four-year span that the transition willt take place wei felt like ati thist time we needed to budget as ift there was no change. Buti ift this does happen we willl be City Manager Orr as we startt to work through the number we look att the whole revenue stream as itr relates tot the number of customer's and expensel itv will be: reflective on the! budgetl I expect that we will fully! have three on our public works as we: move into. July we will work with Hendersonville and: see whatt that details. We are going over numbers with the engineers right now.' What our collection, our uses, our efficiency should be it's been really in  and liability insurance.  looking ar reduction in force and scaling back on our water and sewer expenditures.  SPECIAL CALLEDI BUDGET WORKSHOP- 5/28/2024  3    lighting to say thel least. Unfortunately, it's nott the most efficient system. Wel havet tor make some improvements no matter what. We will prevent some morel loss as we geti intoi itf further we will be able to give your more information. Ishould be able to finalize thet few things I'm waiting on ift there is going to be an increase in water from Hendersonville. We would need to see ifity would affect our water rates. And two other Thingsi in our general Funds. There should be atl least one more version.  With this system therei is lots oft things we need to work on.  Commissioner Oxtoby ini thet fund balance what doy you project for the current year. Where the fund balance say we have this but really don't spend ita all because thati includes accrual vacation ift they walk outt the door that we would Ofthat 198,590.00 is required tol balance this budget. About 78,000.00 oft that is potentially stufft that we won't expend. Plus we can't budget 100% of our property tax levy! can only budget our prior collection rates. Event thoughl budgeted 994,000.00 our budget for property revenue should be right at ar million or al little over ar million butl Ican't  have to pay.  budget 100%.  Commissioner Marion Didy you collect 100% this year?  We are going tol have about 4,000.001 that is going to carry over as when she gave me the report in May. l'm anticipating a 4,500.00 balance that hasn't been paid it could come in less when they make their. June Payment. 78,000.00 to 80,000.00 is stuff that will never: see andi ify you addi int the other revenues we can't budget for.  Commissioner Marion we are having to dip into our General Fund by what? Commissioner Marion so that puts us closei to a 100,000.00?  Yes easy.  Commissioner Marion sO we're 100,000.00 over budget. Where are those biggest numbers at?  Salaries and Insurance that 18% nobody knew was coming. Whenl 9 got the email Steve found online the New York Times where 17 states you can't even geti insurance right now because thel losses are so bad. Several oft the major insurance companies are pulling out of those states because of property damages and things liket that. lwant to say the average increase was 34% increase butt the trustees for thel league only allowed 17.2%. Some of these things we have no control overs such as the state retirement mandate is mandated numbers by the state. Fori the police department, you are paying 21% ini mandated retirement. In your general employees, you're paying 13.6% plusi ift they participate int the 401K you can get up to 5% but most ofy your general fund employees aren't ata a5% Ithink pam and lare the only ones that are at 5% oni the general employee side ther rest are below. On the water side no one is participating ini the 401K. Definitely, your biggest expenses in your general fund are administration and police salaries Commissioner Marion do you! have an increase for the board? 1see where its say possible but We are on thel list twice. No everyone said noti to. Werei it says possible that would havel been what you would geti ift there was ar raise! buti it's  and corresponding expenditures related tot that. Health insurance and retirement. the same as it was. They are listed by name then by department. Commissioner Marion soi thel Fire Department increase isn't in this budget?  Ican send them an email and request them tol be at the. June meeting to request the 1 centi increase ify you wish.  Commissioner Oxtoby they will come toi thel Meeting an request why they didn't get it.  Ijust need directions to addi itt to thel budget ify you want mei to.  Commissioner Marion Ithink one of our goals this year was tot take care of our first responders and fire department, Ifyou look between page 13 and 141d did a property tax calculation Idid give you a reflection of what a 2 % and a 3% increase would bet to the properly tax. Idid thatj just in case you: asked. That is only on the Polk County side. We said  and we will try to take care oft themi ini thet future we got to take care of our people first.  SPECIAL CALLED BUDGET WORKSHOP. 5/28/2024  4    that we would keep the! Henderson county rate until the re-evaluation. soi that would give youa2 27,000.00 increase or Commissioner Oxtoby have we gotten anything from Polk County ont the rates when the revaluate it? Polk County hasn't given us anything Ihave gotten an updated estimate from Henderson County for 2024-2025.  a4 41,000.00 increase in revenue.  Nothing from Polk County yet.  Commissioner Marion when does Polk Counties go into effect. Next year. Isawt the re-evaluation car riding around town last week. Commissioner Marion How confident: are you that it will only be three? Commissioner Walker and" Talbot said okay tot that. City Manager Orr, fairly confident.  City Manager Orr, what do you want Julie to do with thel Public' Works do you want! hert to drop itt to 36 employees?  Commissioner Marion can you estimate whaty you will! bep payingf for extra help?  Henderson County didn't charge us for them helping Columbus we paid 600.00 for 3/81 hour days. Commissioner Marion I'm talking more along the lines of budgeting for a contractor to help.  City Manager Orr, Inever know what iti is or the degree. Ory you could leavei that 4th person there and use that as Bucket.  Commissioner Marion how do yout fill about taking %t that salary and having ita as al bucket for a contractor tol help. Commissioner Oxtoby why not leave the 4th person as contract labor and you would lose the benefits for that 4th  person?  Without the benefits, it's at 44,000.00  City manager Orr knowing that 44,000.00 will be over considerable. Commissioner Oxtoby that will give you a cycle to figure itd out.  City Manager Orrl would sayi itv willl be %1 that. Because of historic numbers over thel last two years. The next Meeting willl be. June 10th at 5:30 before our Regular meeting at 7:00 pm. Commissioner Oxtoby said he  wouldn't be att the next meetings.  We willl have to have one more before the end of. June tot finalize the Budget.  4-Adjourn  With noi further business to discuss,  Commissioner Talbot made a motion to adjourn the meeting Commissioner Marion seconded and all were in  favor.  The meeting adjourned at 6:18 pm on May: 28th, 2024.  SPECIAL CALLED BUDGET WORKSHOP. -5 5/28/2024  5    Respectfully submitted by Pamela s. Waters, City Clerk. Adopted this 10th day of. June 2024.  /Pamela S. Waters, City Clerk h  CbTp  SPECIAL CALLED BUDGET WORKSHOP-5 5/28/2024  6