[0:00] [Music]

[0:13] at six o'clock

[0:27] [Laughter]

[0:33] yes sir i got my fair phone i'm gonna put on me

[0:36] okay okay all right

[1:10] core

[1:24] you

[1:37] i'm excited i was there

[2:04] [Applause] well

[2:10] so i gave it a number

[2:47] spend all my time [Music]

[3:02] we're actually going to have one at the farmers market this year

[3:25] school stuff

[3:59] usually

[4:26] is all right

[4:54] shirt

[5:07] anthony says tell everyone i said hello and they look good on camera

[5:11] thank you anthony that's your big smile

[5:36] okay

[5:46] [Music] um

[6:05] uh this is the city council budget workshop thursday may 6

[6:08] 2021. y'all please buy red and join me in our invitation

[6:12] my dear heavenly father we thank you for this beautiful day and this beautiful

[6:16] weekend this beautiful city please bless us as we look at the city's

[6:21] finances and do what's best for our employees our residents uh and our

[6:26] businesses and uh please use us to

[6:30] service your will uh

[6:39] the united states of america as to the republic for which it stands

[6:44] one nation under god indivisible

[7:00] budget workshop our first one was a few weeks back when we had our

[7:05] annual presentation from our financial advisors first tryon

[7:10] tonight we're going to get a little bit deeper into what

[7:14] staff is presenting to you all for our fiscal year 2021

[7:19] 2022 annual budget including all of our funds um

[7:26] yes naomi reid our assistant city administrator and finance director is

[7:30] going to provide you a presentation it's going to

[7:33] be pretty high level um but she is happy to go into

[7:37] details and answer questions and without further ado

[7:42] you have it

[7:45] thank you sean thank you mayor and council and our department heads

[7:49] sandra our city clerk um i do want to start off by apologizing

[7:54] for not getting this information sooner you will have the budget in full the

[8:00] budget transmittal letter the fee schedule the budget ordinance

[8:04] and all the detail for every line item

[8:06] before you well before our first reading so hope to get that to you by monday

[8:10] just in case you have questions um sean and i'll be happy to answer them

[8:14] get what the apartment heads and get any clarifying items before we head the

[8:18] first reading

[8:21] i also did notice that i stapled two of the same pages to your packet so we'll

[8:26] just skip right through that when i get there

[8:28] like sean said this is our second budget workshop um the first one we discussed

[8:33] are capital items for every fund left that workshop with some some

[8:39] lingering questions and i got together and we developed the

[8:42] budget as presented for your consideration our

[8:46] first reading

[9:04] this workshop i would like to get feedback and direction

[9:08] from city council um to finalize the fy 22 budget

[9:12] um i would like you all to review and and go with us through the assumptions

[9:16] that sean and i made while developing the budget

[9:19] and then understand our methodology for priorities we place on service

[9:25] enhancements and our capital improvement projects

[9:27] in the presentation

[9:33] so a couple months ago city council got together

[9:37] and met at a budget retreat where you all discussed in length your budget

[9:43] priorities and goals and i left from that workshop and i

[9:48] remember mayor mcglier making a statement and it was um after a long

[9:52] discussion of what city council's goals and and for

[9:56] fountain in and what his founding means to city council

[9:59] it got a little quiet and then the mayor said to providing to preserve a sense of

[10:03] community through shared experiences and so i took that that quote and um

[10:09] framed it around how we were going to present the budget to you all

[10:12] and have the department heads keep that in mind while they were developing their

[10:15] budgets so we pulled from the strategic plan

[10:19] document that kevin bronson prepared for us

[10:22] um a few key items and it's delivering on city council's

[10:26] strategic planning goals we want to make sure that that's at the top of our

[10:30] our for our brains while we're developing the budget

[10:33] um you all discussed in length addressing the aging infrastructure

[10:38] throughout the departments um specifically in our sewer department

[10:43] and our public works facilities you know we have needs there

[10:45] and we are presenting to you a plan to to fund the public works facility

[10:49] in the natural gas facility you all discuss

[10:53] wanting to continue equitable and inclusive events to enhance community

[10:56] relations uh provide quality service to our

[11:00] community um and that's going to be through

[11:02] some customer service initiatives that we partner with our hr director on to

[11:07] train our our employees on good customer service um our

[11:11] while the citizens are coming in to to to get those city services from us

[11:16] um we also want to adapt to the growth sean does not like the word

[11:20] um uh managed growth because it what does that mean and so he he came up

[11:27] with the word adapting to the growth by balancing economic development and

[11:30] preservation of fountain in his traditional hometown field

[11:35] we also have funding to improve our city facilities and parks

[11:40] and to increase personnel and professional development

[11:43] um and you'll see that reflected here if you have any questions

[11:47] i'm going to put that and grab some water

[11:53] i guess for the record

[12:04] people ask questions begin to reiterate our budget priorities

[12:14] was to address the critical infrastructure

[12:16] um have a heavy emphasis on our commitment to beautification

[12:20] employee benefits um as well as employee morale

[12:24] streamline our development review process and our new business processes

[12:29] focus on parts and economic development initiatives

[12:36] how we did that um we framed our our budget around the the

[12:42] term provide and preserve and so as we go through this you'll

[12:45] you'll see that we are either providing new services or preserving the services

[12:49] we have by improving the maintenance on some of

[12:52] the facilities or um even in putting dollars into our

[12:56] employees um so the fountain and sewer system

[13:00] improvements will be reflected in the budget

[13:02] found in natural gas system improvements and road improvement

[13:08] a commitment to beautification um our new public works director russell

[13:12] slatten um he came in at the tail end of our of

[13:15] our budget development process and took a look at what laurie and roger

[13:19] put together and had some new ideas uh with the focus on grounds

[13:23] maintenance and so we split out a division of grounds maintenance

[13:26] in the public works department in this budget you'll also see

[13:29] uh funding for um a code enforcement officer and also

[13:35] funding to start the process on our jones to 14

[13:38] streetscape project should we hold our questions feel free

[13:42] um russell what does that look like from

[13:45] the perspective of ground maintenance people-wise

[13:50] i didn't we didn't add any personnel we shipped it we were already

[13:54] doing a ground maintenance through sanitation and

[13:57] all we did was it was basically make sanitation dedicated

[14:00] only sanitation and pull uh three people over

[14:04] because we didn't have a supervisor and a crew lead

[14:08] in sanitation so those crew lead came over as the

[14:11] supervisor for streets and grounds and i took two workers

[14:14] and we modified the way we were running our routes and we pulled those over to

[14:17] streets around so really we only have three

[14:20] people there now uh focusing on just uh just a couple hours

[14:25] to begin with and then we'll grow as needed or as

[14:30] we would have dictated by sean or city council

[14:33] so which is going to require additional equipment

[14:36] initially no uh it will be very minor if we

[14:39] consume a lot of them such as blowers and weed eaters there will be some

[14:42] eventually some lawn mowers uh possibly tractors but

[14:46] they're they're not on the high end they won't

[14:50] be anything like sanitation trucks or

[14:52] anything like that well with under six figures that's all

[14:55] like

[15:10] you thank you um public works department has already started that process

[15:16] with the funding that we did have in the budget for city hall grounds maintenance

[15:20] um you'll notice that the sidewalks were finally pressure washed and the building

[15:25] pressure washed as well some new planters

[15:28] the light poles painted and our hanging baskets are up now

[15:32] and so i think forming that division of the public works department you'll see

[15:35] that really beneficial to the city residents

[15:39] and just beautifying our grounds and and standing out like the great city of

[15:43] mountain we are i saw as you walked in the entrance way

[15:48] uh just you know what having some dedicated

[15:51] employees just to that type of thing what that little bit of difference can

[15:55] make on a regular basis exactly

[16:00] i was curious about the planters and when their

[16:04] water because when i was downtown a few weeks

[16:08] ago a couple of them looked really bad they were water today

[16:15] i mean they looked bad they're supposed to be water daily

[16:18] we have a dedicated individual that goes around in the morning and hits every

[16:21] platter it's supposed to hit every plattered hanging basket to keep them uh

[16:25] fresh and rejuvenated okay because when actually it was eaten at

[16:28] jay peters um for my birthday so late when you were doing that that may not

[16:35] have been the schedule but it is the schedule

[16:37] okay i was just curious and i meant to ask about it but i just when i saw the

[16:41] picture i went oh i think they've been replanted yes

[16:43] they've been rescuing the flowers just a couple days ago they were

[16:48] replaced with

[17:00] and we do have the replenishment um by season in our budget as well

[17:07] next up is investing in our employees and i may spend a good bit of time here

[17:13] on this slide as well as sean um over the past few fiscal years

[17:18] we have put a lot of dollars into our employees

[17:21] whether it be salary increases even just paying for the common class survey

[17:27] um increasing our employer portion to our family coverage

[17:31] but it has been uh very nice sitting down to the table

[17:35] with rebecca going through our state health plan options and seeing how those

[17:39] dollars are going to come right back into

[17:41] families in the city of fountain inn so the cost of the city um it's 288 000

[17:47] and that's an estimate we're still getting those numbers coming in as open

[17:50] enrollment um it's going on um an estimated

[17:53] increase of 30 to our health insurance costs and some

[17:56] years we've we've done this dollar amount and salary increases so to be

[18:00] able to do this um in this fiscal year it it does come

[18:04] in great time for our city employees but we did rip the band-aid off this year

[18:08] and then you'll see those personnel expenditures increasing overall about 15

[18:13] plus or minus in some lines so it comes in about 15.94

[18:18] um increase in those lines and that's that's a 50 dollar amount i've never

[18:22] seen it since i've been here but um yeah i think i just want to reiterate

[18:26] that and uh i think in the first year that i

[18:31] got here i i think we just arcola

[18:42] councilmember can you meet councilmember can you meet your vote

[18:46] thank you um that i believe um around 300 000 yeah

[18:54] it is what we had increased for for salary raises colas and things so to

[19:00] do we are still having a two percent cost

[19:03] of living increase plus almost 300 000 increase just for

[19:08] the state health plan plus all the other things that we're going to

[19:12] be able to tackle this budget here so it is

[19:15] it's a it's a very healthy budget um but you know obviously our finances

[19:21] are in good shape but uh but that is like naomi said that is a

[19:26] huge band-aid to rip off in one year gotta take care of you

[19:29] that's right um

[19:34] so yes the cost of living increase um in our personnel

[19:38] budget and also rebecca coming in as an in-house hr we did split

[19:44] her out of department and so you'll see it in your budget

[19:47] transmittal letter i'll explain it more in depth

[19:50] but she is apartment 417 now split from department 411 where sean

[19:54] and sandra and myself are um and that way we can really see the dollars that

[19:59] we're committing to congressional development employee

[20:02] screenings all the hr expenditures that that come

[20:07] with an in-house hr department and so some of those items um in her

[20:11] special projects and retention budget um 50 of that she's allocated to

[20:16] sensitivity and diversity training customer service leadership and

[20:20] some health and wellness initiatives

[20:25] and this is just a chart um showing the percentages

[20:29] of our total personnel budget that fy 22 personnel budget

[20:34] including all benefits and salaries um eight million six hundred fifty two

[20:38] thousand six hundred ninety two dollars um and

[20:42] then that's across our governmental funds

[20:46] make sure i'm telling you right and our natural gas and our sewer i mean i had

[20:50] three different slides before i decided on this one

[20:53] um and so you'll see the the 40 just under 50 percent of the public

[20:58] safety budget which it's always like that for us

[21:01] and for most municipalities anyone have any questions to try one

[21:11] this is the right slide until um the next of our budget priorities is our

[21:15] fountain in parks and channel chime in on this one as well

[21:19] um the master plan for our pd terry city

[21:23] park we're estimating that at about twenty

[21:25] three twenty thousand dollars but we do eventually want to get a citywide master

[21:29] plan um study done and it will exceed twenty

[21:32] thousand dollars um our next item is our sanctify hill

[21:35] park and that's our priority for fy22 we want to partner with lawrence county

[21:42] as they just recently passed the lawrence county capital project sales

[21:46] tax and earmarked 53 approximately 53 000

[21:49] of that to sanctify hill uh park improvements

[21:52] so we know just from renovating emanuel sullivan

[21:55] park that that's just really scratching the surface so

[21:59] after some community meetings and the master plan that we will have at the end

[22:03] of this fiscal year we'll be able to put a

[22:06] plan together for for council's consideration and see how

[22:09] we can partner and get the park renovated that'll be

[22:12] more of a budget amendment for that one possibly we do have security partners um

[22:18] there's some grant funding available part grant cdbg funding

[22:22] um and we may come in that's right to kind of give council

[22:28] background on that so we did have funds available this budget year

[22:32] uh to do the sanctified hill park thanks did you stream that now

[22:51] yes i have sir question yes sir okay now because 55 year part

[22:59] is part of lawrence county okay and it's 53 000

[23:04] so because we're in greenville county is it our responsibility to give to that

[23:09] part or to reuse our foreign for the uh the business part

[23:16] here let me let me get back to that here in just a second okay

[23:21] okay so okay all right so we did have we had money available this year in our

[23:25] budget to uh to do a sanctified hill

[23:28] uh park master plan we hired a consultant to do that

[23:32] real good price uh very reputable consultants

[23:35] we've had our steering committee meeting already uh councilman dearberry

[23:41] is part of that and we have set a date uh for later in

[23:46] may we're actually going to have a kind of a

[23:48] block party out there and the consultant is going to

[23:52] have three renderings of uh of what the park could

[23:56] be and we're gonna invite the community out

[23:58] there and they're gonna all kind of vote on which

[24:01] uh which of those three they like best uh lead the week leading up to that date

[24:06] uh they're gonna be he's the consultant's gonna be holding a series

[24:09] of stakeholder meetings with uh people like uh representative mark willis for

[24:16] funding possibilities uh other stakeholders in the community

[24:21] to get their feedback and talk about what they want

[24:24] for the park but we're not going to have a real good idea

[24:28] about what that part is going to cost until we get that so it'd be it would be

[24:34] really a shot in the dark for us to budget for it at this at this time

[24:38] but once we get that master plan back and it's cost estimates we can start

[24:42] moving forward already talked to mark willis about you

[24:46] know we've never received any lawrence county part money

[24:50] um so that that's an avenue this would be eligible for cdbg funds

[24:55] third there could be a host of other opportunities of funding

[24:59] plus city funding as well so that could be a budget amendment or what happened

[25:05] we just won't see the final number in this budget that's

[25:12] correct

[25:16] that's right it's not going to fall on lawrence county to

[25:19] to do it um fortunately they were able to include it in their lawrence county

[25:24] uh penny sales tax so that so we did have some funds towards that part there

[25:29] but we want to leverage those dollars just because that is the only uh

[25:36] improvements that are made to that park uh but to say that those funds are you

[25:41] know if we could do a three or four or five to one

[25:45] matching of that i think would be wonderful

[25:49] i was very excited about the our first steering committee

[25:54] it was a hard experience and wonderful ideas

[25:57] i'm looking forward in the next couple weeks with him

[26:01] um simply but meeting with the stakeholders and then

[26:06] presenting some plans i mean just in the few minutes

[26:09] that we were here once an hour i mean he had some

[26:13] fabulous ideas so and so the plan would be uh what we are budgeting though

[26:19] is to do a similar process but for pd terry city park and that's

[26:23] what that twenty thousand dollars is for okay during the first workshop you may

[26:28] have seen a number um listed in fy23 but after sean and i

[26:33] talked that you know to hold that kind of money up

[26:36] not knowing when it's going to be uh sufficient just

[26:39] didn't seem like the the best use at this time

[26:41] um and not being able to leverage or know what type of leverages we can have

[26:46] for additional grant funding that's the decision but that is

[26:50] definitely still a huge priority yes

[26:56] okay so we did touch on a few of these things

[27:00] um already but the overall budget highlights that that um

[27:04] affect all the funds is that there is no operating millage increase or debt

[27:08] service knowledge increase um there is a two percent cost of living

[27:12] adjustment the 30 increase in employer health

[27:15] insurance costs and an addition of eight positions and i

[27:19] don't have those listed but the physicians are in the finance

[27:23] department for an accounting manager and the police

[27:26] department two sro officers one patrol officer and one code

[27:30] enforcement officer in our planning and development

[27:33] department um an additional planning and development specialist

[27:37] and in department 424 which is our public works department

[27:41] two cdl drivers so code enforcement's going to report to

[27:46] police versus public works yes

[27:51] and kind of your question earlier public works is getting a head count

[27:55] edition of two with this budget

[28:08] conversation for later but i know we've had issues recruiting cell

[28:14] drivers

[28:28] so what we've had success with right now as a matter of fact

[28:31] um officially uh we had a couple of cdl drivers that were

[28:36] working attempt to from capacity and they just were hired on as of what

[28:41] day was last monday

[28:52] the agencies that we're working with are specifically targeting

[28:56] the type of folks that are looking for this kind of shift because again

[29:00] yes it's difficult with so much industry around us and some of the different

[29:05] um types of situations that we have um it makes it challenging but so far

[29:11] we've done well um and they're continuing to work

[29:15] with us that's been the better um avenue for us as opposed to direct

[29:19] tire just simply because again um it's it's the nature of the beast

[29:23] some folks just don't like it after they're

[29:25] there so they get to try it out and we get to try them out so that's been

[29:28] successful for us also too in the budget um

[29:32] is some concessions made for staying competitive

[29:37] so the hourly rate is also has a small increase but it

[29:41] allows us to maintain a certain level of competitive support

[29:45] but when we advertise for direct hires for cdl positions

[29:49] i think it oftentimes gets lumped in with those people that have cdls

[29:54] that are looking for jobs that are driving semi trucks

[29:58] and i think they're all we're often overlooked because we can't

[30:01] uh pay those kind of hourly wages so this uh working with these staffing

[30:07] agencies on this attempt to perms is working out great for that

[30:18] the next slide you have here i thought it would be very important for our

[30:22] council to to know that staff has been watching and

[30:26] monitoring the impacts of the pandemic on our finances and

[30:30] specifically our hospitality tax revenue and our business license tax revenue

[30:35] um when i put this slide together and i know i'm a super nerd but

[30:39] um the the april line here this dip this is when the pandemic started and so

[30:45] we knew that we solved it but just seeing it on this this graph here

[30:48] um it it it just makes me excited i don't know i like lion grass

[30:53] um but you see this this is steady going along and we really didn't see that big

[30:59] of a dip even um i've seen some other

[31:02] municipalities the line dropped all the way down and some of our

[31:05] restaurants were able to stay open and continue to to maintain their

[31:09] employment levels but also keep the hospitality tax dollars coming in

[31:14] another item here is december 20. this is our christmas festival time and

[31:20] we see a huge jump in our hospitality tax revenue in december

[31:26] even higher than in our normal years december 18 is pretty flat

[31:29] compared to our december 19 a little bump but that's

[31:33] that's impressive um and so i think that speaks to several departments

[31:37] it speaks for our restaurants staying open um and

[31:40] and maintaining a fun place for our residents to be and

[31:44] eat and keep those dollars in town and keeping our christmas festivities

[31:48] oh yeah i think if we were to really want to nerd out maybe naomi could look

[31:55] at that i think if you were to draw a line um

[31:58] from point a to point b there you you you could see

[32:03] you can see the how it's gradually increasing and then you could even

[32:07] project out um and i think what really excites

[32:10] me here is that i mean you look at this april 21 here i mean that is much

[32:16] much higher than july of 18. i mean our rh tax is gradually

[32:22] uh increasing so i mean substantially exactly um and so we are on pace in the

[32:29] next couple years to just continue to continue absolutely

[32:33] but but i mean if you look even the restaurants

[32:37] their gross income same restaurants that were here in july 18

[32:41] their gross revenue is increasing as well

[32:45] so the volume is of the restaurants is doing great yes we are getting more and

[32:50] that helps but uh just seeing those restaurants do

[32:53] better themselves is also encouraging

[32:58] and i'll detail a little bit more of the dollar amounts and how

[33:03] it increases your beer and i'll add that trendline

[33:07] our next chart is our business license tax revenue by month

[33:11] um also started this one in 2018 um all the way forward to 2021.

[33:17] um this is when sean came on board he moved the business license and

[33:21] permitting function from public works over to finance um and

[33:25] we were able to do some auditing and and clean up that

[33:29] process just a little bit and we had the staff to to commit to

[33:32] that and you can see the the result of making that switch and so our

[33:37] business license tax revenue has been consistently um maintaining high

[33:42] levels which you will see um in the latter part of 20 that there

[33:47] is a dip compared to some of the other years we did have passed an emergency

[33:51] ordinance that deferred our tax revenues coming in so it's a little skewed um but

[33:55] overall what's what keeps us um on track

[33:59] there's it goes all the way out um projecting some more

[34:03] but you'll see our licensed collections that we've collected to date

[34:08] have come in and we've already exceeded our budget like we budgeted just over

[34:12] 700 2 000 in our current budget we are we

[34:15] collected 723 000 and so we've exceeded budget and

[34:19] we anticipate more receipts to be posted in

[34:22] the next few weeks of the those ones that post date their business

[34:25] licenses on april 30th and so they'll be an updated number and their

[34:28] budget transmitter looked better so we did not uh feel the decline that

[34:32] some of our other municipalities felt in business

[34:36] license revenue

[34:39] and that's why we're able to continue um with some of our personnel increases and

[34:46] may increase our infrastructure improve our infrastructure excuse me

[34:51] next slide chart um this is just a graphic of our

[34:58] uh total revenue um in our general fund and you'll see

[35:02] that um sean pointed out a little bit earlier that we do have a healthy mix of

[35:07] revenue sources in our general fund um you'll see 18 of our revenues and

[35:12] general funds made up of our licensing permitting

[35:15] um and as sean was saying some other municipalities rely

[35:19] uh close to 50 on license fees and so we are very healthy by

[35:25] our taxes supporting our services and then our fees and licenses

[35:30] um supporting our other services very healthy i mean it's just straight

[35:35] down the center there um taxes revenues we can keep those

[35:39] taxes um our millage rates low um if we can

[35:42] continue to keep a healthy healthy revenues coming in

[35:46] the general assembly um fixed the business license issue

[35:50] for for the time being um but i i don't think that's gonna ever be off the

[35:54] chopping block uh north carolina did away with their business license

[35:59] tax altogether um actually south carolina is one of the few states

[36:04] that actually still has the business license tax

[36:07] um and but the fact that ours is only making up 18 i think is is good

[36:14] for us um if that ever um came to be

[36:18] while it would be a huge hit um there are some cities where it would

[36:23] absolutely be devastating i mean they would have to lay off half their

[36:28] employees right off the bat where i think we would

[36:31] be able to to manage for a little while and that 18

[36:36] includes our permit fees as well and so the total

[36:40] amount of that is 1800 1 322 and so 800

[36:47] 000 of that is our business license revenue um

[36:50] local tax

[37:04] we recently went to greenville county submitted our application in greenville

[37:08] county and we will be having our presentation

[37:10] scheduled for monday at 4 o'clock um and so i had a really good

[37:14] call with mr john hanson administrator

[37:19] and he's looking forward to our presentation and so i

[37:22] we went ahead and put those village dollars in this budget and that's the

[37:28] increase

[37:34] again another another chart um it's our general fund

[37:38] expenditures um and you'll see our police and fire public safety making up

[37:43] about 50 of that 9 million 186 dollar

[37:49] expenditures across our general fund

[37:54] i don't really have all my charts here i just didn't have time to give you all

[37:58] more information um on that to break it down but you will

[38:01] have it in your budget transmittal um with how the increase in our

[38:06] departments were operating you kind of kept them

[38:08] flat because even personnel was going to to jump up there so our normal operating

[38:12] we kept them flat as much as we could

[38:19] so next we'll talk about um our capital and um

[38:22] if you recall when i can't remember his name right off now

[38:27] first trying representative came and did his presentation um there were a few

[38:30] items that um staff had to to make a decision on based on council's feedback

[38:35] and um it was how to fund some of these larger

[38:39] debt funded items through the iprb um and that was to increase our debt

[38:44] service millage of the we was presented at that time five meals

[38:49] four point six meals um so sean and i went back to the drawing board and

[38:54] uh looked at our our new models and and we saw that we had an

[38:59] opportunity to to decrease that and actually just

[39:02] wipe it out completely by using hospitality tax

[39:05] um dollars and using that fund to pay a million dollars towards the jones 418

[39:11] streetscape project and so some of the other assumptions for

[39:15] our capital um is that all transfers except for the

[39:18] reduction and certain transfers made in the previous iterations of the model

[39:22] were tied to the issues of our current 2019

[39:24] installment purchase revenue bond um they are projected to remain flat

[39:29] some of our transfers and so you won't see many fluctuations in our transfers

[39:32] from our natural gas onto our general fund

[39:35] we just moved the lines that they were going to transfer into

[39:38] um it's wordy i don't want to read it all um but i do

[39:44] anticipate in the future a millage increase um if

[39:48] we want to continue funding our capital projects at this level

[39:51] or we will diminish our fund balance to a detrimental

[39:55] level we do not or our revenues will have to continue to go up so there's

[40:00] lots of balance and things to go on but i think um

[40:04] we do have a village bank and we can use it and it does help with some operating

[40:09] and i'll include that as well um just for your consideration but this

[40:13] month this budget does not include a village experience

[40:16] how many years since there's been a village increase forever a long

[40:19] long time long time ago and while our revenues are great and they're doing

[40:24] well and and naomi can attest founded finances have

[40:28] never been in its greatest shape but we found ends also probably never

[40:34] tackled the level of projects that were

[40:36] attempting to tackle right now with the emanuel sullivan sports complex

[40:42] a new public works facility a streetscape

[40:47] you know we we're going to need a new city hall

[40:51] we've got some big ticket items plus we have to continue adding personnel

[40:56] um we are we're going to have to raise raise millage um at some point

[41:04] and naomi and i agree that it's best to do it incrementally

[41:08] um rather than you know a few years back when we when we raised that

[41:13] public works fee it was a shock to the system there

[41:16] because it hadn't been done in forever i think if we were

[41:20] to gradually do it it's not such a shock to the system

[41:31] next slide just break down our financing plan our funding plan for some of the

[41:36] debt funded projects in our general fund we identified 11.7 million dollars of

[41:43] near-term capital projects that can be funded with debt they break

[41:46] down it's five million dollars for our public works and natural gas facilities

[41:50] with one million dollars of that being funded by the general fund a million

[41:54] dollars being funded by the sewer fund and two and a half million dollars

[41:57] funded by the natural gas fund uh the next project is a 2 million

[42:01] dollar 418 street skate improvement project

[42:04] again with a million dollars being funded by hospitality and a million

[42:07] dollars funded out of general fund where will the other half a million come

[42:11] from from the public that's 4.5 i think it was supposed to be

[42:33] um again in our sewer department super funds excuse me rehab replacement of our

[42:38] sewer line um of two million dollars and our fire

[42:42] related expenses which is the substation three it's not reflected in

[42:48] our operating budget because it's contingent

[42:50] on the fire service village increase being collected by greenville

[42:53] county and those funds uh do not touch our i want to highlight

[42:59] just a couple of things um one i don't want to underscore the

[43:03] importance of the streetscape improvement if you've

[43:05] been looking at greenville news in the post and career greenville lately

[43:10] while we cannot always be looking at our peer communities to see

[43:15] what they're doing but if you'll read cities cities of

[43:18] simpsonville and malden are about to undergo two huge

[43:22] streetscape improvement projects um and i think in order for us to stay

[43:26] competitive in the golden strip um i think this is

[43:30] something that that we really need to do i think they're trying to emulate

[43:33] what we've already done in our downtown um

[43:37] and and i really think that the the amount of private investment

[43:41] that will flow into that south main street there once that streetscape is

[43:45] done uh we'll more than pay back that two

[43:48] million dollars over time and then as far as the the sewer line

[43:53] improvement our our sewer engineers have estimated

[43:58] approximately four million dollars left to rehab our entire

[44:04] uh sewer system all of our remaining clay pipe

[44:08] all of our remaining uh manholes we have a current ria project right now

[44:15] that is undergoing and what we've done is applied for a

[44:19] state revolving loan uh fund for that two million

[44:22] dollars which is virtually interest-free it is like one

[44:26] percent interest uh we've not been approved for that yet

[44:29] but if we if we are um that is a wonderful wonderful way

[44:34] to uh to pay for that um if we can get that 2 million plus that

[44:40] raa done we will be have one of probably the best

[44:45] sewer systems in the whole upstate we will have almost a virtually

[44:50] uh rehab sewer system we could have the whole sewer system

[44:55] rehabbed within the next five years which is pretty incredible

[45:03] we're watching this will be another conversation for another day

[45:08] but um the eligible uses of the arp money we're getting

[45:13] for silver infrastructure that could lessen

[45:17] this burden yep um so what let's say srf

[45:24] decides we they don't want to fund us that or

[45:27] if we want to uh to add to just finish out the rehab or

[45:34] use that money to pay the debt uh payments on it

[45:38] but yes the arp funds specifically said water sewer and broadband infrastructure

[45:45] so those stimulus dollars can definitely be used for sewer rehab

[45:52] we do commit could continue to monitor um

[45:55] every outlet we can to get as much guidance as we can

[45:59] to make sure we are being as creative as we can with those dollars

[46:03] for development we also have two hundred thousand dollars in our solid waste fund

[46:09] and that is two vehicles and a piece of equipment

[46:13] um initial budget was 562 thousand dollars before

[46:16] uh russ took a look at it and um removed one arm bandit um and so he

[46:25] the system that you're going to use you might explain in the back the pickup

[46:28] truck and that additional piece that will go into that

[46:32] truck to pick up um be able to cull the stacks we talked

[46:35] about oh yes it's called a uh and basically

[46:39] it's very a smaller unit it's an f1 they have 250

[46:43] with basically a dump body on it and what it does is it's got multiple

[46:47] uses one usually if somebody calls and uh says

[46:51] that you didn't pick up my garbage we sent a garbage truck out to pick this up

[46:54] which is how incredibly inefficient now we have an

[46:56] f-250 we can send out it doesn't we don't have to have a cdl

[47:00] driver to pick them up also allows us to get into the uh narrow

[47:04] streets and service them we can actually use it

[47:06] as another garbage truck because it does dump

[47:08] in the back of our current garbage trucks and uh it also can be used in

[47:12] special events and with parks direct on uh they have big events

[47:16] anybody can use it because anybody can drive it so it's a multi-faceted machine

[47:23] so that will replace our 2017 master lease that paid off

[47:26] this april as well as well as our geo bond debt 2015

[47:30] issues paid off in april 2021 as well

[47:37] some of the cash funded items um that we've included in this budget

[47:42] and our police department is our watch card

[47:45] camera system um that's eight cameras i believe yes eight

[47:51] cameras um a lighting and equipment package for

[47:54] four vehicles a striping package for four vehicles

[47:57] and ndt scanner printers as well we are funding using our same mechanism

[48:03] of the enterprise fleet management program and and that's

[48:07] why it's not shown on our capital so it's actually a

[48:10] monthly lease payment and we're going to be replacing

[48:13] um four police vehicles

[48:18] we're replacing four and adding four we're adding four okay just add it

[48:27] in our special events department um they continue to improve our christmas

[48:31] festival um and we're going to um

[48:36] add to our in-circle entryway there needs to be a lighted feature because

[48:40] it's kind of dark it's going down that way

[48:42] and that's at six and a half six thousand five hundred dollars

[48:46] and then eighty thousand dollars uh for our commerce park stage pavilion we're

[48:50] still uh getting some quotes but they're

[48:52] coming in either with sixty thousand or a hundred thousand for a cover over

[48:57] the stage a billion each year we rent from professional party rentals and

[49:02] the the amount of events that we have for our

[49:05] sounds of summer we're spending about twenty thousand dollars a year in ten

[49:09] rentals um yeah

[49:13] they give it a much more professional

[49:28] this time in addition to the fireworks

[49:39] it was awesome

[49:42] it is included in the budget um in our natural gas fund the

[49:49] cash funded project um it's a mix between his cip

[49:53] um this is eduardo's plan for a new meter replacement a vacuum

[49:59] machine you know the clayton newberry interconnect um install high pressure

[50:04] steel that's a that's a high dollar project

[50:08] and he we've just met recently and they come in

[50:11] a little bit higher um but he said he'll give me a number as

[50:14] soon as he can lots of subdivisions

[50:20] the total cost is 2 million 763 000 dollars in cash funded capital projects

[50:26] for the natural gas fund um we do maintain our days on hand we do

[50:31] maintain our debt service debt ratio coverage

[50:36] um and so the fund is still healthy and should there be an emergency would be

[50:40] able to to maintain 212 days

[50:44] of service to include these projects and all the other allocations to the fund

[50:50] it was not many years ago that we would have not been able to cash funds

[50:56] all of these projects

[51:00] and still have that kind of cash on hand and may i say that i can really confess

[51:05] is one word

[51:20] um

[51:28] budgeting 2.7 million dollars in our current fiscal year we budgeted

[51:32] around the same dollar amount year-to-date

[51:35] um for our subdivisions just because it depends on

[51:38] when construction is gonna start um we've only not only

[51:42] but we've spent seven hundred and ninety three thousand dollars of the two lane

[51:46] that we created so the fund um can handle this but it also

[51:50] can still handle if the projects were to somehow miraculously come online

[51:55] the push line would still be able to handle it these are estimates that we

[51:58] requested for each subdivision so that we have them and this assumes

[52:01] these subdivisions going

[52:05] and so what we do if we phase them um and then they'll push out many some

[52:10] three to five years for some projects um in some projects for nearing the last

[52:14] four to fourth or fifth days

[52:19] our sewer fund um there's there's one item that was

[52:24] previously budgeted for in our current fy 21 budget

[52:27] but we deferred it to f122 just to give time for um for us to get

[52:35] in and use the the funds um already available

[52:39] on some other smaller cash funded items and so we met and just gonna defer right

[52:43] to the next fiscal year in a couple months

[52:46] but that is an item that's still needed

[52:52] a lot of words you have any questions

[53:06] this is just more about the methodology that we that we used

[53:10] to fund these projects and just wanted to make sure council was aware of what

[53:14] um the plan we select the scenario to to leave the

[53:17] debt service village at its current level 11.6

[53:20] and have the general fund operating revenues fund balance cover

[53:24] cover the difference um and so this is what it does to our general fund

[53:28] um you see our net earnings drop in 2022 in 2023 and start to pick back up in

[53:34] 2024 um but we felt that we were okay uh the

[53:38] fund can handle this still because our unassigned fund

[53:41] balance continues to stay um at appropriate levels this

[53:46] goes back to our conversation about the village increase

[53:51] if there's a huge expense our veterans can

[53:54] continue to drop and our unassigned undecided fund balance will continue to

[53:58] to lower as well but we do feel that this is the best way to go for this

[54:02] fiscal year by not letting the additional debt

[54:05] service village i anticipate you know in the next year

[54:11] to some some even higher revenues as as

[54:14] fox hill business park comes online some additional

[54:17] subdivisions come online some additional commercial comes online

[54:21] some of those business license taxes and things but

[54:25] we also know that we've also got a lot of big ticket uh projects that we need

[54:30] to start tackling as well

[54:35] which is again there's a very high level overview of our

[54:38] proposed budget that you will get um and consider for first reading on next

[54:42] thursday um this is the end of my presentation

[54:45] but if you have any questions for me i'll be happy to answer any if i

[54:49] don't want to answer it off i'll get

[55:04] um

[55:12] [Music]

[55:17] it was quite laid out very um supports away with childhood understanding

[55:22] so i i've communicated all along that there was a lot of work put into that

[55:26] um their layout plan so i've been appreciated

[55:31] and by y'all taking the time to it step by step

[55:34] i'm able now the questions i did have you can answer them to the point where

[55:39] i'm very well pleased thank you sir um before you

[55:46] you ask on it one of the kind of the hot button issue that it seems comes up

[55:51] every year although it's not um the grand scheme of our over 20

[55:56] million dollar budget every year is is the amount of funds that

[56:01] our three organizations apply for with hospitality tax

[56:07] what staff is proposing this year is uh is to not fund any of those out of

[56:13] our hospitality tax this year and instead use our federal

[56:19] stimulus dollars to fund those at whatever level council

[56:23] wishes one of the the

[56:29] one of the items of guidance from the federal government on the on the 3.9

[56:35] million that we are to receive and we're supposed to receive half of that

[56:38] here in some kind of may or june is that you can

[56:44] give those funds to two non-profits in your community

[56:49] especially ones that were affected by coded

[56:52] and we know that beyond center was tremendously affected by koben

[56:56] the museum and the chamber were as well and so we felt like this was a good

[57:02] opportunity for us to use those precious hospitality tax dollars

[57:06] in our budget this year for projects personnel and other things

[57:10] and use those dollars that are coming to us from the federal

[57:12] stimulus money um um that we you know this could be a

[57:17] once-in-a-lifetime thing use those for for that um without

[57:23] got those partners requested yet they did

[57:26] they made their requests um i we told uh the chamber and in the art

[57:33] center that that was our plan and the museum and they were good with

[57:37] that but they are going to be kind of waiting for that next conversation on uh

[57:42] at what level does this council want to fund them with that 3.9 billion that's

[57:47] that's coming that they asked for an increase

[57:50] we got we've got 300.

[57:58] that we would have been able to find those three organizations

[58:01] at the level that they requested i'm sure no way

[58:05] i think i'd like to see us so one of this money

[58:12] is for intended uses um and if we don't use it

[58:17] we send it back and it gets somewhere else and uh

[58:21] one of them is for businesses and non-profits affected by the pandemic to

[58:25] the lesson of the burden so in my view this is a conversation for

[58:30] another day because i think it might be best practice for us to actually adopt a

[58:32] resolution on how we plan to spend so with

[58:39] but the idea is it will also be opportunities for businesses

[58:43] and non-profits

[58:48] to be able to kind of lessen the really about recovering and you know

[58:54] relaunching or what have you um what we are waiting on the u.s

[58:58] treasury department will issue guidance we think

[59:00] next week give or take and that will give us really

[59:04] exactly how and what we can do well i know we've talked about this before but

[59:08] i would actually want to see some kind of plan

[59:10] as to how they begin to use it because there's been no good solid checker

[59:15] balance over the past few

[59:31] i don't include their packets um

[59:39] what's

[59:45] i would like to up i would like to say that

[59:49] wait a minute let me get straight okay i would like to say that now

[59:54] i don't agree with it i was going to be uh revealing

[59:59] this is what affected also by copenhagen now um and with the reveal

[1:00:07] it keep going up one year down one year so they were not the only one that was

[1:00:13] affected by the coca-19 so if it's not gonna be used

[1:00:17] for the grand purpose that the government is giving the kill

[1:00:20] i'll say send it back because i don't think we should give it to one

[1:00:24] particular business that's my thoughts and i won't speak with that one all

[1:00:30] right no dude thank you sir um what i would say in the

[1:00:34] grand scheme so let's say council was to to

[1:00:37] out of that 3.9 million to fund those three entities at the

[1:00:42] at the request that they asked for this year i think that that totaled around

[1:00:47] 500 000. that's in the grand scheme of things

[1:00:51] 500 thousand out of 3.9 million is still relatively low um

[1:00:57] and that 500 000 um would have been a lot more than we could

[1:01:03] have funded in one fiscal year out of our

[1:01:06] hospitality tax funds um so i just i say that so

[1:01:11] that it's possible you guys could even be more generous

[1:01:15] with the chamber the museum and the yacht center with these

[1:01:19] stimulus dollars than we could have been in our annual

[1:01:22] appropriation of our hospitality tax dollars

[1:01:25] that's right i just want the employment for just giving money you know

[1:01:33] years because this is you know that's like the stimulus

[1:01:37] it's just one time thing how are they going to maintain

[1:01:42] their operations um what is their plan because they're

[1:01:47] all you know if they all have boards they

[1:01:50] need working on their own fundraising their own funding streams

[1:01:54] and not solely rely on the city or all of that i mean i want i'm for

[1:02:00] helping them but there needs to be a more

[1:02:17] this particular use of funds arp in particular

[1:02:20] we've also got food banks that have had increased we've had

[1:02:24] uh education entities so this is not think about i'm thinking about it as how

[1:02:31] do you get everyone to re-emerge and then

[1:02:34] using it again this is all dependent on what world

[1:02:38] the treasury department the fine print on all this is

[1:02:41] but we had talked in recent months about reinvestment incentives for local

[1:02:45] businesses and a lot of it potentially having this

[1:02:49] be a way to contest that that out as a pilot um so anyway

[1:02:54] there we'll see what we can do but yeah i do have to be

[1:03:00] yes

[1:03:14] um i'm kidding i feel i'm with you 100

[1:03:22] thanks anthony you're welcome hey thank you

[1:03:25] he said that we're nodding and smiling um um if you don't mind we'll go

[1:03:33] to uh any other questions number six and i just wanted to thank um naomi for

[1:03:40] her hard work on this um

[1:03:44] another interesting budget here last year was interesting with kovid

[1:03:48] this was also a copic year i don't want to get too far

[1:03:52] into the hipaa stuff on that but we've had a lot of staff issues health issues

[1:03:58] and things like that so it's been it's been tough i i do think we would like a

[1:04:02] little bit of guidance on uh process going forward

[1:04:06] do you guys feel like you have enough going forward to

[1:04:10] have first reading on our budget for next week next thursday

[1:04:16] okay yeah i'd like to see it you know that'd be good

[1:04:19] um just to make sure and i would recommend

[1:04:22] folks ask questions

[1:04:36] especially there's two readings of the budget so if there's time to

[1:04:48] do you want a minute or do you want me to go with mine first do you want a

[1:04:51] minute please okay

[1:05:06] all right back in

[1:05:14] december of 2018 you all uh passed on second reading an ordinance to

[1:05:20] grant a sanitary sewer easement to valley the adventures incorporated

[1:05:24] over real property owned by the city it found in

[1:05:27] what we're talking about here is this uh piece of property

[1:05:31] right here on valley view road um it's for a townhome subdivision

[1:05:37] at the time of the developer i believe was randy brewer

[1:05:41] um he is uh my what i've heard kind of overextended

[1:05:47] himself he got involved in too many subdivisions all at

[1:05:49] once he is he is since he's out of the

[1:05:53] project he's sold that property another developer has come in

[1:05:57] um for this project to work they needed two sewer easements

[1:06:05] from the city of fountain inn

[1:06:09] and they are exhibited um here these were the two sewer easements

[1:06:15] that the city gave this developer for for this project to happen anytime the

[1:06:21] city gives uh sewer easements where we

[1:06:26] normally get something in exchange in contract terms that's called

[1:06:29] consideration what uh what the deal that i worked out with the developer at that

[1:06:35] time was instead of paying money for for

[1:06:38] those two reasons what we did was if

[1:06:43] you recall this is city-owned property right here and

[1:06:50] this goes back to the uh the whole woodside village

[1:06:57] thing that happened before i got here where we started to develop the the

[1:07:03] property along diamond tip and fairview streets

[1:07:06] found out we couldn't because it was encumbered by the federal government

[1:07:10] and so they had to do a land swap we and i i took that over the finish line

[1:07:15] but what we did is we had to take some other city-owned property

[1:07:19] in the city that we had and they identified this portion here

[1:07:24] and uh said this is going to be used for recreational purposes

[1:07:28] and instead that's not going to be recreational so you can develop that

[1:07:33] so we had this property here and it has a humongous duke power line

[1:07:39] easement through it um it's got wetlands it's it's kind of a

[1:07:44] hot mess of a piece of property can't do a whole lot with it um former

[1:07:49] former mayor sam lee we were talking about

[1:07:52] what can we do with it he said well since you can't really

[1:07:56] build on it build any structures why don't we try to make it into a dog park

[1:08:01] and so when they needed the two sewer easements

[1:08:04] from the city um i said well that's fine why don't in the ordinance

[1:08:12] [Music] um it's not important uh we'll give

[1:08:17] we'll have the ordinance says that

[1:08:22] in exchange for the grantees agreement to perform grading and

[1:08:27] clearing on the site of the uh proposed dog park and that was

[1:08:32] that was it that was the vague language that we gave them that

[1:08:35] said instead of payment for the sewer easements

[1:08:39] is that you they would clear and grade um

[1:08:43] for for the dog park well obviously things got kind of weird when

[1:08:48] that developer that agreed to it is not out of the picture new people come in

[1:08:53] and we had this preliminary uh site plan developed

[1:09:00] for for this dog park one of the big problems with this

[1:09:04] this dog park is access issues um we tried to get access here uh

[1:09:10] bilo would not let us have um uh parking through there um

[1:09:17] it's county own road you got the duke there

[1:09:20] couldn't get curb cuts so the only way to get

[1:09:23] access to it was actually going to be through the development

[1:09:28] so the parking had to be here and so if we were going to have a dog

[1:09:34] park we had to get we have to get an easement an access

[1:09:38] easement from the developer

[1:09:42] so this is what we proposed to the developer so this is their their

[1:09:46] townhome subdivision here and so we said well

[1:09:48] will you grant us uh an access easement so we can get

[1:09:53] to the dog park and they said well they didn't really like that idea

[1:10:01] given they didn't really want public traffic

[1:10:04] going through their subdivision to get to get to the dog park they like the

[1:10:08] idea of having a publicly owned amenity right there that their their residents

[1:10:14] can use but they didn't love the idea of having

[1:10:18] just anybody going through their subdivision but they said you know what

[1:10:21] so this was a private town home uh this is a town-home subdivision

[1:10:25] which can have private roads private roads means that this hla is going to

[1:10:30] have to pay for the maintenance of those roads so they said well we will

[1:10:34] give you that access easement if you

[1:10:38] allow us to have public roads and so we we said well maybe

[1:10:44] okay well now we're back to the point where you know they've cleared

[1:10:49] and graded and all that kind of stuff well they

[1:10:52] budgeted when they bought this this property ten thousand dollars

[1:10:57] to do the clearing and grading and all we have ever provided them

[1:11:02] was this site plan we have we city has never invested

[1:11:09] in getting uh grading plans or any civil site work

[1:11:15] done anything like that all we said is while you guys are out there clearing

[1:11:19] grading go ahead and clear and grade for us too

[1:11:22] and the developer needs a little bit more

[1:11:25] than that for for uh to go out there and and grade uh

[1:11:30] appropriately there's permitting there's wetlands

[1:11:33] there's there's quite a bit that's necessary

[1:11:36] developers come back and said do you mind

[1:11:39] we budgeted the ten thousand do you mind just uh we'll just stroke the city a

[1:11:43] check for the ten thousand dollars so basically five thousand for each eastman

[1:11:48] so that's the first question tonight is whether or not you guys are willing

[1:11:53] to accept ten thousand dollars for those easements

[1:11:56] rather than them clearing and grading and if that's if that's the case

[1:12:04] then we also need to make a decision about what is the future do we want a

[1:12:10] dog park there or not um because if

[1:12:15] um if we just take the 10 000 that means they won't clear and grade it

[1:12:21] that means that we're going to have to budget funds at some point to

[1:12:26] actually get this project to completion um i had an opinion a probable cost

[1:12:33] that took out clearing and grubbing erosion control rough grading all those

[1:12:40] kind of things because we told them that they were going to do all

[1:12:43] of that and the total uh that the engineers gave

[1:12:48] me this was a couple years eight 2018 was

[1:12:51] 93 000. more than that now and then if you

[1:12:55] add all of that on there you're probably

[1:12:57] looking at 200 grand to get this dog park there

[1:13:02] if we are not going to do the dog park

[1:13:07] yes sir

[1:13:14] yes councilmember why not give

[1:13:31] it is appraised but it also it now has to be for recreational purposes

[1:13:36] the city has to own the property and it has to be for recreational purposes

[1:13:40] according to our land swap deal we cannot develop it

[1:13:43] we can't do anything other than recreation

[1:13:48] so

[1:13:51] the question then is if we do not want a dog park there if we don't feel like we

[1:13:56] want to invest 200 000 at some point then that means we don't

[1:14:00] need this access easement

[1:14:04] which means we don't have to own those roads

[1:14:09] so that's kind of that's kind of the decision we need to make and they're

[1:14:12] okay with either one they of course would love to have

[1:14:15] public roads but that's the trade-off here is

[1:14:20] do we want access to that because if we don't get this access easement

[1:14:25] that property is probably deadlocked forever it probably

[1:14:29] i mean it's possible something in the future can happen by the food lion

[1:14:33] it's possible we can work out something with duke but those are long shots

[1:14:38] right um but then the these are going to be private roads

[1:14:44] and then we'll never have to own and maintain them which is a good thing

[1:14:48] um so those those are kind of the the two the main two decisions is do we

[1:14:53] want to take the 10 grand and that is just going to require a

[1:14:58] resolution of counsel to change that that original ordinance

[1:15:02] um and then the other can just be a staff decision

[1:15:05] because we have not accepted the plaid or anything like that is

[1:15:08] do do we want to say we don't want the access easement we

[1:15:14] want these to continue to be private roads like we was initially

[1:15:17] done or do we want to keep this axis easement and have it be public roads and

[1:15:23] that's kind of that's kind of a question for you guys

[1:15:25] tonight doesn't necessarily have to be a vote but we kind of need some feedback

[1:15:29] here well i kind of get his point

[1:15:35] i wouldn't want cars coming through my street uh that's

[1:15:42] people that don't you know we still get some cut through but

[1:15:45] i don't know how much traffic that would actually get but

[1:15:48] i don't particularly care for the fact that we'd on

[1:16:04] may not

[1:16:09] you could still use this for recreational purposes we lack passive

[1:16:12] parks in the city really where you can just

[1:16:15] meander around we've got pretty much one side of the trail it's

[1:16:19] about probably about it so there's a i think a good use

[1:16:23] at some point for that but i think and maybe

[1:16:27] maybe you know they were against having a road

[1:16:31] access here but maybe pedestrian access to it at some point they would be open

[1:16:38] to but i would agree with you that russell and

[1:16:41] i kind of feel the same way that maybe

[1:16:43] we're kind of sticking a square peg in a round hole here

[1:16:46] they were kind of forcing a dog park where we all like the idea of dog park

[1:16:51] but maybe this is not the appropriate parcel for us we would

[1:16:54] essentially be committing to it and we got a lot of other needs in the

[1:16:59] other parks so i mean i know that the intention was

[1:17:02] that we would be able to do this at some point with the original developers it

[1:17:05] was okay to kind of park it a little bit yeah but i think given the new developer

[1:17:11] and they're moving on quick they're we're actually to hold up

[1:17:15] at the moment they don't want to move everything if they still

[1:17:19] they well they still need to try to clear and grade

[1:17:23] yeah that's all right okay give you some feedback i think so

[1:17:30] i guess it would be i'd rather have the money too so

[1:17:36] for the resolution right that's what we'd have to do that's actually the vote

[1:17:39] you guys you would have to change the order so we would instead of clearing it

[1:17:43] gray and we would say it's five thousand parties that's

[1:17:48] correct all right naomi's back to you

[1:17:59] uh sean was approached by a company and we often are approached by companies

[1:18:04] that want to come in and do revenue recovery um we

[1:18:09] partnered with new strat at analytics a couple of years ago

[1:18:14] where we asked the company to come in and identify businesses who

[1:18:17] are operating in our city limits without a business license

[1:18:20] a couple years have passed we have grown and we feel

[1:18:24] we do not have sufficient staff currently to take on that undertaking

[1:18:28] strat was able to um be able to get to earn 80 000 from that partnership um

[1:18:34] and that was after the cost that we paid to new strat

[1:18:38] at 30 percent data max is another company just just

[1:18:42] like new strat um we would have went back to new strat

[1:18:46] but they were not operating at the same

[1:18:49] level that they did in the past when they helped us before

[1:18:52] uh data max's terms are a little bit different than new stress they request

[1:18:55] 50 of the revenue that they find um for a

[1:18:58] certain term but we feel that we would not see

[1:19:02] the revenue anyway so i would like for you all to

[1:19:06] read through the agreement um and on thursday consider it for

[1:19:10] approval um so that we can go ahead and engage their services

[1:19:15] and then start seeing that revenue if we sign the contract within

[1:19:18] the next few days they can they guarantee

[1:19:22] funds to come in by july by june

[1:19:26] so a lot of cities in south carolina are are using them

[1:19:30] and kind of what they they have a magic formula kind of like new strat did

[1:19:35] and what they'll do is they'll provide our city staff

[1:19:38] with about 20 to 30 businesses every month that they've identified and

[1:19:44] they let us know first who those businesses are and we can tell

[1:19:49] no no they're not actually operating in the

[1:19:51] city or you know let's not let's not tackle that

[1:19:55] one um and then then we circle the ones that we

[1:20:00] say yep no they are operating in the city they don't have a business

[1:20:04] license and then they they almost act as a

[1:20:07] as a collection agent and there's a 60 day out on this if we're not satisfied

[1:20:15] and it's just for the 12 months or not right correct

[1:20:18] see what we can get

[1:20:21] and these are not typically your mom and top

[1:20:25] mom and pop type of businesses the you know

[1:20:28] we know those those are the ones that we find anyway the ones that

[1:20:32] have a brick and mortar here but a lot of times people don't realize that

[1:20:37] the business license tax is on for it's for anybody that's doing

[1:20:42] commerce in your community and so the business

[1:20:45] license actually applies to a lot more than what

[1:20:49] people realize so what they're finding are vending

[1:20:53] machines and people that are doing deliveries and

[1:20:57] things a lot of big corporations that are doing

[1:21:00] businesses doing business in municipalities all over the state and so

[1:21:05] they've got a good list of who those those corporations are

[1:21:09] that are doing business in other cities that don't have a business license

[1:21:13] and so they'll check and see if well are they doing business and found in

[1:21:16] yep and so then they can get are they all familiar with them

[1:21:21] other cities are using them successfully we found a lot of revenue with them in

[1:21:26] lake city

[1:21:31] thank you

[1:21:48] very nice very helpful is there a motion to adjourn absolutely thank you mr

[1:21:53] clemente thank you

[1:22:12] no

May 6, 2021 Budget Work Session

Transcript