. . Good afternoon. The term now is for 18 on May 14, 2025. And I would like to call for the meeting. This is a special meeting about study session. So at this time, meeting called to order. Madame Clerk, would you please go ahead and take a roll call. Thank you. Mayor Wynne. I'm here. Vice Mayor Monzo. I'm here. District one, Councilwoman Van West. District three, Councilmember Wynne. District four, council member win. Mayor, you have a quorum with district one, councilwoman fan west and district four, council member win absent. Staff can I get an idea for you to inform, what about the council then from you prior to the meeting. So they're going to be late or are they going to attend the meeting? Yes, no. Councilman Fanowes had expressed earlier that she wasn't going to be able to make today's meeting regardless. And Councilman Nguyen, he's running late right now. Okay. Thank you very much. So Salute to the flag today is going to be Vice Mayor Manzo and then invocation by district three, Councilmember Mark Wayne, please stand. Please stand. Ready, begin. Congratulations to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which I'm a guest, one evening Help us keep in mind that we are here to serve the people of Westminster and enable us to make our decisions so that we may do what is best for all of the citizens we represent. Amen. Thank you, Vice Mayor Manzo and then Council Member Mark Winn and for the sort of flag and and then the invocation at this time. I would like to ask the madam clerk to go ahead and read the instruction for the oral communication and I just want to remind everyone that this is oral communication for a study session only and the topic today is fiscal year of 2025-26 proposed part of the agenda. Thank you mayor. This is the time in the meeting that members of the public may address the city council regarding any items on the agenda. Unless otherwise extended by a majority vote of the city council, comment shall be limited to three minutes per speaker. Any person wishing to address the city council in person should complete a green speaker slip that is provided at the entrance to the council chambers and submit the card to the city clerk. My name is called please step to the podium at that time and state your name and city of residents for the record. We have one speaker tonight, Terry Reigns. Hello, I hope you all reviewed the entire report and are prepared to have a robust discussion today and ask intelligent and thought provoking questions unlike years past. Council members are not accountants. This information should be presented at an executive summary level and an easy to read and understand format. Starting with, provide dollar and percentage differences between FY25 estimated actual and the proposed 26 budget. Only dollar variances between FY25 adjusted budget and estimated actual are shown. The proposed fiscal year 26 budget cannot be analyzed easily without them. Key variance notation should be on every schedule. Staff is seeking direction on the supplemental request list. Should be the first attachment, not the last. Some Burbage justification, but no workloads stats, except for the one request. Why? The request amounts are fully burdened costs, so why not make that clear? And number, the request for easy reference. Council, this is not an all or nothing. You must bet each request independently on its own merit. Number one, water accountant one, 90,000. Ask who is doing all this work now. Yes, regulations are ever changing, of being changed out but most of the task are already being handled by current staff, right? Did the city just start shutting off water for nonpayment, need workload stats? Two, police services dispatch manager, 148,000, three, and four. Two full-time parking enforcement officers, 115,000. Absolutely. As for details of the part-time wage reduction cited, how many officers will remain part-time if any, and what daily coverage will be, need workload stats. Five, upload or upgrade to part-time water maintenance helpers to one full-time water tech, 15,000, ask. Will anyone have to be laid off going from two bodies to one with different job descriptions, begs the question. Six, upgrade one part-time water admin assistant to full-time, 53,000. Ask who is doing all the work now? Can this upgrade be justified? Need workload stats? Seven, can bring 40 hours of part time CS coordinator wait just to one full time admin assistant, 40,000. Ask will anyone have to be laid off or are the positions vacant now? Eight, upgrade one part time building inspector to full time, 76,000. The only request presented with limited workload stats asked, will anyone have to be laid off? This building inspector upgrade seems reasonable, unlike many planning requests in the past. Vacancies are normal budgeting. All budget positions at 100% is not. Essentially pouting the budget. The government finance officers' association agrees. The artificial salary savings are then used to fund additional spending without formal budget appropriation. It's concerning to see $9 million of reserves used over five years to balance the budget even with why and major e revenue. Council, you must take this budget seriously and scrutinize all spending and prioritize approving new revenue stream projects. You can't just keep adopting the status quo budgets and adding positions because the well will run dry. Say no to status quo. And I can't even express how disappointing and scary it is that these two council members are not here for this session and they were not present for the whole strategic plan session. Those are the two most important sessions this council is charged with doing and their absence Absences there must be consequences and there will be complaints filed Mirror we have no further speakers all right. Thank you very much at this time we go into the discussion of first school year from 2025 to 2025 to 26 proposed budget so stop it for please. Good afternoon mayor, vice mayor council. This is our proposed 25, 26 budget. So I've added this slide to our presentation to give you an idea of how to read our budget document. So this is a fund statement which is under our summaries tab, or a statements tab excuse me in the budget and I've Labelled each item so a the top left 601 utility conservation fund is the fund name and the number and this page layout is consistent throughout the document The next column 2324 is the prior year revenue and expenditure information and this is actual audited numbers. The next column which is labeled C is the 2425 adjusted budget numbers for revenue and expense. D is the estimated actual how we're going to end the current fiscal year 2425, which is basic, in most cases the same as was presented at mid year. E, and it's a little blurry on this, I apologize, but that's the difference between the adjusted budget and the estimate for revenues and expenditures. F is our proposed budget that we're reviewing today. And G in green is the proposed budget with supplemental. The supplemental only hit three funds, so on the fund statement pages, only three have that green column, but all of the detailed pages, which are under the department headings, I'll have that green column, even if there are no changes. If you go further down the page, H is the revenues, so this is the detail for this particular fund on revenues. I would be the expenses, salary and benefits, maintenance and operations, capital outlay. We finally, or next we have transfers. We then go down to K, which is the change in our position. So our increase or decrease of our balance. And finally, L and M, L is the beginning, so where we started the year and M is how we're projected to end the year. This slide is to give you an understanding of the components of the city budget. The General Fund accounts for most services that people associate with the city, public safety, public works, park and recreation. Special revenue funds are for specific purposes and are legally restricted with, like gas tax, ARPA, CDBG. Capital projects funds account for major improvements funded by grants and transfers from other funds. Enterprise funds or water funds or funds that are self-destaining. Fuduciary funds account for resources held for the benefit of parties outside the city, in our case it's the successor agency to the Westminster Redevelopment Agency. Internal service funds provide a service to other departments like building maintenance and vehicle services. All of these funds will be discussed in more detail on future slides. This slide shows the same groupings as the previous slide but in a pie chart. The total city budget is $154.3 million. The general fund, Shown and Teal, is the largest with 90.5 million or 58%. Water, Shown and Grey is the next largest at 24.2 million or 16%. Internal service funds total 13.7 million, capital projects and economic development funds are 12.3 million, special revenue funds, 7.7 million or 5%. And then the fiduciary funds is 5.9 million or 4%. As I said, special revenue funds are from revenues legally restricted or assigned for specific purposes. Gas tax, measure M, CDBG, home, ARPA, FRC, AQM, and police grants are most of them. Revenues from these funds total 13.9 million and expenditures total 7.7 million. There are transfers to capital projects totaling 9.3 million in the special revenue funds. All unspent ARPA funds will be carried over to the previously allocated projects and must be completely spent by December 31st of 26. The water funds are comprised of the Water Operating Fund, Water Conservation Fund and Capital Projects Fund. Revenue is budgeted at budgeted at 23.5 million, mostly coming from charges for service. A majority of the 24.2 million in expenditures, excuse me, are in pump and base and assessment, 8.2 million, salaries and benefits, 5.2 million, maintenance and operations, 5.9 million, and capital projects are 4 million. The last water rate increase was in February of 2021 and included five years of adjustments through January 2025. There are three new position requested as supplemental in the water fund totaling 158,000 which will be discussed in more detail later in the presentation. which will be discussed in more detail later in the presentation. Internal service funds are used to account for the financing of goods or services provided by one department to other departments of the city and are funded by department charges on a cost reimbursement basis. City has five internal service funds, motor pool, general benefits, liability administration, information systems and government buildings. The total budget for these funds is 13.7 million. Three of these funds, general benefits, equipment replacement and information systems are currently below the minimum fund balance policy level of 500,000. Primarily due to cost for claims and capital projects. Three million is needed to bring the internal service fund group to the recommended minimum reserve level of the 500,000 per fund. The proposed budget includes 15 million in capital project requests, 200,000 for lighting projects, 200,000 for storm drains, 315,000 for park improvements, 4 million in water system improvements, 10.1 million for street improvements, and 225,000 in city building and vehicle upgrades and improvements. These projects are funded with transfers in from special revenue funds, water funds, and 1.5 million from the general fund which is recommended to be transferred in the current year from savings. The economic development fund is also in the capital projects category. This fund has 1.3 million in expenditures, which includes the Vehicle Re-Bate Program. The ending balance available in the Economic Development Fund is 3.2 million. on the current your projections from CalPERS, it will cost $264.6 million to pay off our unfunded pension liability in 2021 years. And the annual cost will increase an additional $3.7 million through fiscal year 3031, making the total 17, almost 18 million for at the annual payment. And it'll then at that point start to drop slightly. As you can see, 31-32 goes down a little bit. At the city, we're to pay this unfunded liability off in 15 years, the annual cost would be 16.8 million. And we would save $12.3 million. If we were to pay it off in 10 years, the annual cost would be $21.9 million, but we could save $45.5 million. In 2017, the city began setting aside monies in two section 115 trust accounts to help pay for the pension and retiree medical obligations. As of March 31st, both the pension and the retirees medical trust account had a balance of $6.2 million. The city's retiree medical is currently paid for on a pay as you go basis. And the annual payment is $3 million. The, both of these trust funds can only be used to pay pension and medical costs and can help in the future with budget shortfalls. Future pension cost projections will fluctuate based on the CalPERS investment returns. the total outstanding pension liability at 630-24 was 146 million, and the 25-26 payment is 14.28 million, as shown on the previous slide. By paying this unfunded liability payment to CalPERS in July, rather than monthly, the city is able to save interest and transfer that savings of 462,000 to the 115 trust. The OPEB retiree medical trust is held with the California Employee Employers Retirement Benefit Trust or CERP Fund. The total outstanding OPEB liability at June 30, 24 was 43.4 million. The annual payment is 3 million and the city $250,000 to the trust annually. The General Fund proposed budget is the first balanced budget in six years. The General Fund is the primary operating fund of the city and accounts for all tax and revenue to provide city services. The budget projections include employee negotiated contracts and contribute 624,000 to reserves. This does not include any supplemental requests. The budget with supplemental requests contributes 244,000 to reserves. Revenue projections increased 4.6 million from the prior year, and expenditures increased 3.5 million from fiscal year 2425. General fund revenues as I mentioned are budgeted at 91.2 million. 81% of general fund revenue comes from taxes, followed by charges for services at 11%, an investment in rental at 3%, the remaining categories total 5%. This slide is going to further break down our largest source of revenue, which taxes at 73.6 million. Property taxes are 30%, or 21.8 million. Most of this revenue in this category comes from the property tax in lieu of VLF, which is budgeted at 13.7 million. Sales tax at 25% or 18.7 million is shown in the blue pieced slice. Our largest source of revenue in this tax category is our locally generated transaction use tax. Our measures Y and E, and they contribute 31% or $23 million to the general fund tax category. Utility user tax brings an 8% or 5.8 million and the remaining sources, business license, franchise, transient occupancy, and property transfer tax bring in 6% or 4.3 million. I've showed this slide before, but I think it's important to see what others, the share of property tax received by our surrounding cities. For Westminster, we receive 7.4% in our general fund, which is highlighted by the red bar. We also receive 2% that's specifically dedicated to our muni lighting fund, which is not shown on this chart. Westminster has one of the lowest property tax shares among Orange County cities. Our residents pay the same property tax rate as everyone else, but less of the revenue comes back to our city. is the only city that is the only city that is the only city that is the only city that is the only city that is the only city that is the city that is the only city that is the city that is the only city that is the only city that is the only city that is the only city that is the only city that is the only city that is the only city that is the only city that is the only city that is the only Our 7.4 is 88.2 million and is our second largest source of, no I'm sorry, the 7, well it's, I'm excuse me, property taxes are second largest source but that's because it includes the property tax in lieu of VLF, which is added to the 8.2 million. This chart shows general fund expenditures by department most of the costs are related to public safety Please set 44.9 million or 50 percent Fire is 19.7 million or 22 percent general government and public works are 9 percent each Community development is 5 percent and community services is 4%. This slide shows the estimate for the current year in the first column. Based on these projections, we will end fiscal year 2425 adding 1 million reserves to the, to adding 1 million to our reserves. The proposed fiscal year 2526 budget adds 624,000 to reserves, and the projected ending reserve balance at the end of fiscal year 25 is 46 million. The next four columns are projections for the next four years based on the proposed budget. Each of the future years includes 1.5 million in street projects funded from the general fund. It is necessary to continue to fund street related capital projects from our general fund in order to meet our maintenance of effort requirement to continue to receive measure M to funds. The fiscal year 2526 street projects are recommended to be funding from savings in fiscal year 2425 and are included in the current year estimate. The Council and community prioritize city services through the passage of the transaction use tax revenue measures Y and E. Without these measures, the city would have been out of funds by fiscal year 2425, which is our current fiscal year. As it indicated in the prior study sessions and discuss discussions, the passage of the sales tax measures would provide our community a lifeline as we pursue additional revenue sources through increased retail development and other economic development projects. These are the changes from the current fiscal year 2425 budget. Revenue projections increase 4.6 million. Property tax projections increase 680,000. Sales tax increase 514,000. Transaction use tax increase 630,000. Charges for service increase 1.7 million. Finds increase 305,000. Investment and rental increase 362,000. And license and permits increase 255,000, investment in rental, increase 362,000, and license impermanence increase 255,000. Expenditures increased 3.5 million, per retirement cross, increase 1.7 million, part time minimum wage increased 141,000, our OCFA contract increased 4.5% or 616,000. Salary and benefits increased per our MOUs at 1.1 million. This budget will include a public records request line item, object 40095, to better track costs associated with the Public Records request act. And the five new full time positions are requested as supplemental in the general fund totaling 380,000. These supplemental requests are the discretion of the city council. The costs for supplemental are shown fully burdened. There are eight request for new positions, five in the general fund and three in water. I will summarize each of the positions but staff is available to answer any questions. In community service, there's a request for a new full time administrative assistant position which is replacing two part time positions to provide consistent and reliable coverage and reduce the long-term costs associated with high turnover. The full time position costs $94,697 and is offset by $54,395 of part time wages. The net cost to the general fund would be $40,3002. In community development, there's a new full time building inspector position request to replace one part time position to devote more time to residents construction jobs and assist with trade plan checks. The full time position costs 113,246 and is offset by 37,300 of part time wages. The net cost to the general fund is $75,946 for this position. In the police department, there's a request for a new full-time police dispatch manager to oversee the operation due to technology upgrades, changes in dispatching requirements, high turnover, the full time position costs 148,153. There are also requests for two new full time parking enforcement officer positions replacing two part time positions assigned to street sweeping and paid parking enforcement. The full time positions cost 8,500 each and are offset by $56,485 of part-time wages. These positions have the potential to increase revenue and the net cost to the general fund is $115,315. There are three positions requested in the water fund. In finance, a new full-time accountant one position is requested to assist with switching new meters, courtesy phone calls on high balance accounts, payment plans, closed accounts, final notices, and processing return mail. The full-time position costs $89,835. In public works, there's a request for a new full time water technician one position to replace two part time positions for meter reading and customer service. The full time position costs $85,360 and is offset by $70,822 of part time wages. The net cost is $14,539 to the water funds. There's also a request for a new full time administrative assistant one position to replace one part time position to assist with meter exchange, cross connection, lead and copper rule revisions, break registry, demand forecast, fire flow and the full-time position costs $94,697 and is offset by $41,444 of part time wages. The net cost for the new request is $53,252. During the strategic planning meeting on April 28, the City Council made setting priorities for spending transaction use tax, measures Y and E revenue and objective. Priorities for allocating any surplus funds could be included in the fund balance policy which is approved annually with the budget in June. The current policy includes an emergency reserve allocation of 7% of general fund operating expenditures. Additional categories could be added to the policy committing a percentage or dollar amount of the annual surplus. Examples of categories could include reserving money or allocating an amount to future pension costs, infrastructure improvements, or increasing the emergency reserve percentage above 17%. Finally staff is looking to the council to provide input and direction on the supplemental budget requests and the fund balance policy finding priorities. The final proposed budget will be presented for adoption at the June 25th, 25 meeting, and staff is available to answer questions. Thank you very much. At this time, I would like to invite Councillor if there's any question for staff. Anyone? Vice Mayor Manson? Thanks. The first one I have is what position are we into? I'm really interested in increasing our reserve levels right now. We're at 17%. 17%. Yeah, so as you can see in the coming years, we're going to be having to keep status quo. We're going to have to keep polling from the reserves. So our total is above 17%. We have an emergency reserve of 17%. So the emergency reserve total 15.4 million and then we have unassigned balance of 30.6 million making our total projected reserve at the end of the 25, 26 year, 45, almost 46 million dollars. Yes, that's the current one. But in the future years coming, we will be putting it down to, I mean, pretty every year we keep going down, correct? Yeah, it got down in the projected 29, 30 year to 38.9 million. Yeah. So in order to keep that 17% level, we won't be able to- We would still make that, because it's about 15 and a half million. So the 38.9 would still cover that 17%. We will meet keep our 17% reserve level in there, right? We will still continue. It would still be there. Unless the council chose to remove it, but it's in the policy. But as far as priorities in years of surplus additional money could be added to that or it could be added to Other items on that pension costs Capital projects I could be put as a reserve or it could be allocated to a project or something like that When we have a surplus yeah to be used the future. Okay. Can you go back to um page I think it's 16, 16, 17? The projections? Yeah. So this is the one I was speaking you say that's through the reserve. It's, it's, it's wondering. So that reserve balance is the total of that reserve balance 17% is reserve for an emergency and the remainder is considered unassigned, excuse me. So right now, 17% is about 15 and a half million dollars. So this even through 29th burden would still need that. Can we put that? Let me jump on the screen. Thank you. Do you have your budget in front of you? If you look at page 7. If you look at the blue column, at the very bottom. 91. The 459. Right. So that's the 46 million that's showing on this slide in the shaded column But that 46 million or 45983 is split between the emergency reserve and The unassigned so that emergency reserve would continue Just at that same percentage so every year it's adjusted to 17% of our operating expenditures Yeah,. Yeah, I just don't like seeing it going down. Right. I mean, we should be adding and subtracting. That's my point. I understand. So that's something that we need to work on. What was down? Do you see any, any areas that you'll see that we'll be getting less revenue? Like for one example is the mall, the revenue that comes out of the mall area right now in the future years. We have adjusted some of those in our projections and obviously the hope is some of our vacancy buildings and other retail locations will help offset some of that. But yeah. And obviously the hope is some of our vacancy buildings and other retail locations will help offset some of that. But yes, we have already seen some of that as well. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you have. And then where we add with the vehicle tax, the vehicle rebate, is that still, program still is still active, there's still more going on. It is still active, yes. We can sign in to see what we've spent this year, but I don't have it. Actually. In 2324, we spent 220,000 on it and it's out of the economic development fund and we're Pre-running around that same total for the current year 225,000 and what was the total funding allocated for that prompt? We I believe it's and I'm not 100% sure but I believe it's 500 a thousand a year But I'm not sure on the total do you remember the total we'll look it up. It's 500 a year for how many years? Yeah, let's just one second five years I'm going to put the I'm going to put it on the top. Okay. actually'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Search. Search. Search. Search. Search. Search. Search. Search. Search. Search. Search. Search. Okay. Then next question to have, when is our next day when we're doing our cost recovery fee fee? That will be coming to the council on the June 25 meeting with the budget. Okay. We're in the process of it right now. Okay. All right. That's all I got for now. Thank you very much. Anything from council Cousin-Mont, member Markwyn? Yeah, I saw some of the position on some of the departments going from part time to full time. Can you elaborate again on some of the reason why we're going? Do you have a specific position? I'd have the department answer that. Like the, was it the community department and the community development or community services? Community services. Sure, thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor. Remember, City Council. Yes, the request is to convert some part-time hours staff that work community services front desk. We've seen high turnover rate over the last five years and to an effort to be consistent and provide better service To release some of the continual training that our full-time staff has to do with those part-time people that we're requesting to convert 40 of those hours to a full-time administrative assistant to man our front desk Is this is it's the same reason for the other positions in the other departments that are going from part time to full time also? Can you repeat that? Yes, please. So is this pretty much a similar justification for some of the other position? I would defer to those other department heads. I would imagine it's very consistent is that high turnover consistent ongoing training we're having to do with those part time staff and you know they come on board for us specifically we've had a number of staff stay less than a year so once we train them they either move on to somewhere that's paying slightly bit better or they've taken another position within the department. Okay, all right, thank you. Maybe better off, can you go back to those slides as the positions? I'm sorry, thank you. Could you go back to the slide that have positions so that maybe probably it's better for him to? Of course. This was the first one. This was a community service position and the community development position. So the full time building inspector from a part-time. And then the next one were the police positions, dispatch manager and the parking enforcement officers. And then the last one were the water positions. The new full time account and one position. The water tech one position. And then administrative assistant position. Yeah. Yeah. I have a little questions. Just keep it there. Slide 21, right? Okay. I'm my understanding is that right now, as of right now, we have a long period of time. We have a long schedule for those people who want to install new meters, quarter meters. And because of that, we actually contracted out to the vendors. So if they want to, if they want to, they can go out and get the vendors and get it quickly. And if they want to wait for the city, it could last. But at the same time, it took longer for us to fulfill that. Well, if we approve these new positions for the AS request, do you think that we are going to improve the schedule for the water meter in stone? So we have people from public works that can address that, okay? Concern or be able to elaborate a little bit more on that. Thank you very much. Actually, I can actually explain a little bit more about what the water tech does and what the roles are and who actually does installations versus. Hi, good afternoon, Council Mayor, Vice Mayor, member of Council. And so the public works department is putting in two requests. The first one is to combine or eliminate two part-time position for meter reader and we combine it to one full time and the reason for that is you know with the part-timers very similar to what Vanessa mentioned does not a lot of reliability or commitment from those staff. It is a high turnover so you know with staff, we have to keep on training over and over, over and over for them to replace these meters. So we believe that with the full time, you get more vested interests in that position for long term. And then the second position is to eliminate the part-time admin assistant position and combine it to create a full time. Because again, we have a lot of new mandate from state and federal government. And just to name a few like the Latin copper cross connection, which we have in ordinance going out tonight. And also break the registry. They want us to identify any time that there's a water loss. They want to count for it. And also there's water conservation as well. And if you want to hear more detail, we actually have the matchman analyst, No Nani, Lil with us tonight. She's in this program for a long time, and she can better explain those new requirements that we have to face. To on following up on the mayor's question, it had to do with new development. So let's just say 80 use for example, when the user opening up, that there's a delay in essentially establishing that connection. And a significant delay if they're going to go with the city option, will these positions benefit or streamline or shorten that delay? That's the question. No, because the position, first position is for meter reading only. So we have roughly 20,600 meters throughout the city. That needs to be read. Okay. For one year cycle, we do roughly seven times a year. So we prefer to have full time staff dedicated to just reading that because that becomes a revenue source for the city. The one you talk about ADU that's different where developers have the option either to wait for us city staff, which is we have limited staff or they can hire their own contractor and then do the installation. Carousel, lead time should be nine months? Nine months, nine months? Yeah. That's what I have. I have a lot of complaints from the residents that they do the new build, the new ADU. And they said that for the City of West mystery, take the time months to install the water meter. And I check with staff and I understand that we have to limit it just like you said, we have to limit it. And if they want to move quicker, then they can go out and get a contractor to do it. For that, exactly. So we usually streamline like the review process for them to submit the plans to us. Right. But as far as staff time we have so many leaks throughout the week. So for example, this week we have two leaks. Okay, and my question for you is I understand they compare it from city to city. For like, you know, the sorry surrounding city or never city that they do much quicker, faster than we are here in West Pster. What can we do in order to improve that process? As far as city staff do the actual installation. If we need to improve that quicker the diamonds that we have currently and we will use to require more of the staff and how many if there is a requirement so much. I would say I have to plan internally but definitely the more staff the better would be. The increase in construction crew to perform that work would be necessary to do things too. They're adding two more for that is going it going to work to help? Of course it's help, but you know, it's what they say. But then my question, the next question to you is by adding two more manpower to that. Of course we are going to spend money to play for that. Do you think that we have enough projects to recover that cost? Let me discuss internally and get back to you with that manpower, but definitely too would help. Okay, right. All right, thank you very much. Do you have any idea of if we go for too, how many, what is I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I quite a few. Yeah, I know. And it's a good thing. I have people from Kuduos for that, but at the same time, they complain about the long process of getting the water meters installed. So why don't you do the cost comparison and see if we can offset that, and you can come come back you know and present it to the council. Definitely well thank you very much. Thank you. Can you go back to slide number 13? 16? Yes. Oh. I'm going around. Yeah. Yeah. I have very much. I have the same as vice mayor of Menzo. Seeing that we are eating into the reserve is not what we want to see. I believe that you probably go over this one already, but I just want to make sure that why we are going from the revenue that we are going to get more but then the expenditures you know more and more every year that we have to go into the reserve. We have to get into the reserve. Well quite honestly a large part of the the expenditure increase is our unfunded liability cost from PERS and those change based on the interest rate. But you can see on this slide the large jump, I believe it goes in, I forget the percentages, but there's the big jump in fiscal year 2029 and they project a 9% increase that year. So every year, even if we're keeping costs low, that was that other slide that I showed you. 9. You can see these large increases. So this is a, we have to pay this. We don't have any choice. It's our unfunded liability and purse tells us what we have to replace or to pay. This is why we're putting some money in the 115 trusts, like I mentioned. So in those years where we're, where we have a deficit, we may want to pull some of this, this money here, the 6.2 million in each of these. We could pull some of that to cover our budget in those years when the PERS are the PERS unfunded liability cost spike. So when we have a surplus like the current year, we could put additional money there and then use that money for those costs that increase in the future. So some of the funding priorities might be to put additional funding in the 115 trust to cover years when we aren't as positive as we would prefer to be. Yeah, I understand beside that, I believe that there is an increase from OCFA with 4.5%. That's in there as well. Yeah, that doesn't help, but back to this Protection that you have for the next five years. Do you have any ideas or staff came up with any idea that we can Recover or trying to get some revenue in such as, I know there are there are a few projects that we have in place Which is the billboards or you know The Westminster mall or you know some of those do you think that it's going to help? Oh, absolutely. They're just not in here yet. They'll be in here as soon as we can project for them As part of the strategic plan There were a couple items for us to bring back to the council on some additional revenue sources. So that will be coming back to you as well. But we don't have those, we won't have these items in our projection until we have a good idea when they're starting and the dollar amount. do you have have any plan that lay out, you know, that is it would help to recover the costs if we implement these projects? Let's say, example, I know that the cannabis, they brought up a couple of times already and they projected, you know, we were to implement the program, we will help with the... Oh, absolutely. Any additional revenue will help this for sure. And that is one of the items that will be brought back to the council. And I believe it's in June, this second meeting in June, I believe we will bring that item to you. Okay. And then they have a chance to present it to us that what is the part of that? Yes the ones that were discussed at the strategic plan will bring those back. Okay. All right thank you. Okay. I have a follow-up. Thank you Mayor. So back to the Mayor's point on I mean and we're trying to be here in reality. You you know, a lot like those items at the mall and the billboard, I mean, they're, I mean, they're, we don't even have a date. Right. Set right now. So, we're talking, you know, you can honestly say that's more than five years from now, you'll see anything. And as you can see every year, we'll be tipping into the reserve. And the quickest out of all those examples that we had looked at for possible new revenue, to me, since the mayor part of the cannabis, that is probably the quickest sort of future revenue, which you guess to say yes yes on that? Or I mean, if you're looking at a timeline, I mean, I don't know, a dolphin, I don't know. I mean, if you're looking at anything permitting building, I mean, the mall isn't even, it's not even nowhere near anything as far as starting anything. So that's how it even gets to see, eight years down the road. You know, before you see any revenue out of there, and the billboard, they're not gonna start any construction this year. And what I understand, they're gonna start construction. If they get all their settlements, hopefully next year, in 2026. I think you're talking about construction. So it'll be a long time before you see any revenue coming out of that. There's a huge upside to those topics you brought up, but they are not immediately around. They're not immediately. That's my point. They're further down. There's years away. So time is not on our side. We need to, as a council, in step, we need to find a way to quickly generate as much revenue as possible to make up some of these losses. We're going to increase also. We have come up our negotiation with their unions. That's coming up. So the numbers we had on the slide, those are going to change as well. Chances are they're going to expenditures are going to increase. They're not going to decrease. That's correct. So I do have some future projections for expenditures on revenue. I do have increases, but they're fairly conservative on both the revenue and the expenditure side. So yeah, time is not on our side. We need to do what we can to help ourselves and give us the best chance of success. And then also too, the everything that's hurting us us and right now we have a cost savings of vacancies and but those vacancies are hurting our service the service that we provide because as a mayor mentioned you know that to me nine months for Watermeter that's to me that's I would say unacceptable But you know, they shouldn't me, that's, I would say, unacceptable. But, you know, we shouldn't, they shouldn't be taking that long. But if you don't have the staffing, there's little, very little you can do. The other position, the other department that I find that it's really hurting us right now, because we don't, it's understaffed as a community development. That is revenue generating department that we need desperately get up and running and staff so we can process applications, process, you know, we have these construction projects to get that revenue coming in. So that's another area that we need to do better in. My personally I would like to get into the position where we hire more code enforcement officers right now we're really understaffed on that position. That department I should say and that is also hurting us. We need to do better on that as well. So that's all I got for now. Yeah, I know that you have a date that you're coming back for approval of what date is that? June 25th. June 25th. OK, we still have June 10th. So something meeting, right? I have a question. Can you go back to the favorite chart number 21? 21, yes. Also, Vice Mayor to answer your question, the vehicle rebate program is three million over five years. We have spent 454,000 for a little over two years. For 15? 21, not 21. 21, this is 21. Oh, this is 21. Then number 16 then. 16? Yes, 16. This is the projection. This is the one. Okay. Okay, I know that you said that all the projects that we just mentioned, like billboards, cannabis, and all those projects that we were looking forward to, you don't have it here. Because what happened if you can you establish something like this with the best guistimate that you can have from those programs. And I I believe that there is the cannabis is coming up this month, right? Well, I think we could before the date that we are going to same date same date I Believe we could make a list of potential revenues that we're looking at in the future and give you years when those might be implemented Yes, I I hesitate to put anything in a projection that like this, that's not- I understand, but just best guess the mid so that we can understand if we as a council- Yeah, we can provide- Approved these projects, it will offset what we're seeing- We certainly could give you something, we could add a line for- or something that would show you additional revenue options in the future. Well, so just to kind of jump in. And I understand everyone's concerned about the budget. The difficulty about government budgets is we can't really account for money that we don't have. And certainly some of the projections that are provided, I hear myself echo, I'm sorry. So the projections that we have on some of the projects that are coming, they're best estimates. For example, cannabis, a certain group can say they're going to bring an X amount of revenue, but it's really not that. And so I'm reluctant to bring that kind of information as well. Certain areas that we can always look at, I mean revenues right now, we always project them as very conservative coming in. We can look at maybe a slightly higher increase, assuming that the market is still viable. look at revenues being higher, sales tax revenue, for example, being higher than what's currently projected. As far as, we've talked about this in previous meetings where there aren't projects that are gonna necessarily bring these big cash outs, which is what's really difficult. It's usually a multitude of different developments in multiple projects. Like we have, we talk about the mall, we talk about cannabis with these larger amounts, but we also have other projects in the pipeline that are going through the development phase that are also going to generate monies as well. The only problem is because they're going through the phase, we can't really talk about how much money we're expecting. There's also other, we talked about billboards, we talked about our city billboard program. But as you'll see later on the regular maiden agenda, there are billboards that are bringing in revenues as well. So it's all these things that are added together. I think if the council has an interest in maybe looking at this a little bit further, taking an account of some of the positions, other supplemental that you're interested, we can do another study session before the June, the second meeting in June. We can certainly bring some of those numbers back. As far as supplemental, as staff every year we're all very aware and conservative when it comes to our needs. Things do take longer than others because unfortunately we don't have the staffing to basically catch up with the increased expectations and extremely increased expectations and workload that we have. And some departments really see that challenge more than others, community services one. We've went from what three events to like 300 a year. Sometimes I feel like that's not an exaggeration, but it's also like the magnitude of things as well. So there are a lot more supplemental requests that were not presented to you, because our goal this year was to present a balanced budget. Certainly, that's what the study session is for. I understand the ADUs and the water meters we've been doing doing a lot and that's because a lot of property owners don't want to pay the contractor. And so we do the best we can to accommodate. But yes, nine months sounds like a long time. Will hiring, will hiring more reduce that from nine months to two months? I don't know. Will it reduce it down to seven months? Maybe. But those are things we'll have to look at. And then code enforcement, you know, as you know, we've had a lot of changes in code enforcement. Do we feel like there is a lot that can be done in code enforcement? And absolutely, code enforcement, they're really the eyes and ears of the city and they're kind of the gatekeepers of our city's beautification, right? So, you know, but we're going through processes to try to enhance and improve that division as well with, you know, changes and staff. And so, but we understand the need, but all these needs, they cost money. Yeah. So it's, we're just trying to balance what we can with what we have. But we can come back to another study session. I certainly don't think that we need another study session. As we are going through the fiscal year of 2025, 2025, 2006, I don't have any problem with that. But now the road, 2025, up to 2025 to 30, then we have a problem with that. And knowing that there are certain projects and programs that we are going to implement next year, so we can always discuss about it. And take that into consideration. Knowing that if we are not doing anything else, then we are going to dip into the reserve. So I think that that's probably okay for now. I mid-year is actually a great time for us to look at where we're at too, as far as, when we're looking into next year's budget cycle as well. Yes, as someone had mentioned next year, we're going to be going into negotiations as well. And what that looks like may also impact what our expenditures look like. But on top of that too, there's a lot of expectations in the workforce right now as far as wages, there's battles of minimum wage and fair wage, et cetera. And a different concessions that the workforce is really, it's changed a lot, especially since COVID, right? So it's been very challenging in terms of a personal perspective to kind of tackle those issues. But certainly, yeah, we can come back with another study session. And we're definitely moving forward with being more aggressive in terms of economic development, bringing in different projects. We're very focused on that and of course we appreciate the council's support and some of the things that we've been doing over the last three and a half so years with just looking at development and mix-use zoning, different zoning specific plans and areas that we can improve to make ourselves more development and business friendly. So that's always helpful too. You know, this council hasn't been sitting, you have been sitting on your hands and some of these issues that we've, you know, that we've had over the years, you know, it's not anyone on this council's fault. It's preceded your time for decades. So, you know, we've still been moving along the last few decades. I mean, the last few years. So, you know, we've still been moving along the last few decades. I mean, the last few years. Thank you for that. I just want to say I appreciate the staffs and I'm really proud of staff that really presented us with the balance budget the first time in six years. You know, that's not something that's kind of just brush aside. That's huge. So I appreciate all staffs efforts and I also, you know, like you mentioned, city manager about there's more positions obviously that we need. But you're trying to balance our budget. So I appreciate that. And those positions that were mentioned, I feel they're all justifiable. I think that they were needed and those, which we can do more. There is something else that I maybe with the police chief you can get with them. I'm interested in, I think I spoke to you about this before. I't think we have enough Float cameras in our city And that's something that I think that's really important to keep our city our resident safe I don't know what they Caused you know, I don't know if there's a number that you can get us we can we can add that yeah Just just for for information. Yeah, we can we can add that to You know the next round of yeah,lementals see what those costs look like. Okay. Thank you. Okay, in an instance of time, we must have to end this meeting before 530, because we have to start with the closed session at 530. So it's very informative. We don't have to take any action today. So I just want to thank the staff for all the information presented and hopefully that you can bring back on the next 26th grade, in the 26th of June, so that we can adopt for the 2025-26, 24 or 2526. 25-26. 25-26, but it's physical here. All right, is there any other question from council members? All right, if not, then once again, thank you very much. And I would like to adjourn the meeting here. And so we'll come back at 5.30 for the close session. Thank you very much.