[0:00] of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God,

[0:05] indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thank you. Tonight,

[0:10] our invocation will be given by Miss Carol Edwards and she is with the

[0:15] Dilling County Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Miss Carol, thank you so much

[0:18] for being here tonight. Thank you for having me. Let's pray. Gracious heavenly

[0:22] father, Lord, we thank you for the city of Dylan. And we thank you, Lord, for

[0:26] the men and women who you have called, Lord, to serve this city uh to serve

[0:31] you. Uh Lord, we just pray right now that your wisdom would be in this room

[0:35] tonight. Lord, that the unseen guests in this room, but very present guests would

[0:41] be your Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, we pray for the city of Dylan. We thank you

[0:46] Lord for the past success of the city of Dylan but Lord we look forward to the

[0:50] future and what you have planned God for our city. So Lord I just pray right now

[0:55] that you would have your way in this place. Heavenly Father I pray that you

[0:59] would help us Lord to love one another and to serve one another in this room

[1:03] tonight and help us Lord to face one another with the face of Christ. We ask

[1:08] you God to bless our city, protect those who serve our city, and we ask these

[1:14] things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Miss Carol, thank you very

[1:18] much. And in case you don't know, she works with all the schools in the

[1:22] county, and she does a super job with the kids. Thank you for everything.

[1:26] Thank you. All right. First thing is the approval

[1:31] of the agenda. Do we have a motion to approve the agenda? Do we have a second?

[1:36] Second. discussion. All in favor? All

[1:41] opposed? Approval of the minutes regular council meeting April the 14th, 2025. Do

[1:47] we have a motion? Motion. Discussion. All in favor?

[1:54] Opposed? All right, moving right into the mayor's report. Want to welcome

[1:59] everyone tonight. Little rainy weather out there. appreciate everybody braving

[2:04] braving the rain and coming out to join us. Uh it's been a really really busy

[2:10] month in April and the first part of May. There's been a lot happening around

[2:14] around the city of Dylan since our last meeting. Of course, the most notable

[2:18] thing was to celebrate Maine and and Lisa, I think every year it gets bigger

[2:24] and bigger and and I think you actually had to turn some people away this year.

[2:29] Wait till next year is all I have to say. wait till next year. But it it was

[2:32] a great day. We started out that morning with the Huntington bike ride and fun

[2:37] run and then of course u Councilwoman Smith and I were out there at the stage

[2:42] and she led us in the pledge of allegiance and we got started and uh

[2:45] Pastor Johnny Corbett started us out in a nice little prayer and and it was a

[2:50] great day and and I asked Lisa about how many people came. I guess you you you

[2:55] estimated by somehow 3,000 or something did that. But I think what's important

[2:59] too is to realize how many people actually took to put that on. Exactly.

[3:03] I've never calculated it before and I estimate around 775 people to to just

[3:09] put it on with the vendors and their help and everybody else. So we might

[3:13] have had 3,000. We had 775 just out there working it. It was it was an

[3:18] incredible day. There was a lot of good food, a lot of a lot of good

[3:22] entertainment and and people stayed late. The police department, they worked

[3:27] all day. They were vigilant. Public works, they were up and down the streets

[3:31] picking up stuff. The recreation department, they were out there with

[3:34] bingo at the theater. Douglas, uh, you know, everything went great. The fire

[3:39] department was out there all day. They got put down there by the train tracks.

[3:43] Kind of loud down there. A lot of kids down on that end. And of course, the

[3:46] Methodist men cooked there that afternoon. and we really appreciate

[3:49] that. But it like like Lisa said, it was it was a great day. It took a lot of

[3:55] effort and a lot of people participated and and it it is a very classy event and

[4:01] it shows well for the city of Dylan and and I really appreciate how everyone

[4:06] everyone was involved and and Burke, please please tell all the guys how much

[4:10] we do appreciate it and acknowledge their efforts. They they got up early.

[4:14] They must have gotten there at five or six o'clock that morning and I guess

[4:17] some of them were still there at 12:00 that night. So, thank you very much.

[4:22] Following that, we followed up with another little bit of entertainment down

[4:26] at the fountain for our first first Friday event. And and with that, we had

[4:32] a local artist, Terry Powers and Pepper Creek. And and you know, they did a

[4:37] great job and it was a huge crowd. The weather was great. and Lisa, thank you

[4:41] for for both of those events and heading those up. This month, we also had a

[4:46] groundbreaking and we broke ground at the long anticipated market pavilion

[4:52] over on the buffet lot or behind the visitor center behind the police

[4:55] station. And I'm so excited about that, Bert. It looks like it's going to be a a

[5:01] great venue. And as we try to revitalize downtown and we look to bring foot

[5:06] traffic, this this is going to bring foot traffic down there. So, we had a

[5:11] nice groundbreaking, of course, uh, Representative Hayes was there and said

[5:15] a few words, and I think Stephanie with DCA, she was there, said a few words,

[5:19] and you know, it just it it takes a lot of people to bring the funds together to

[5:24] make these projects work. And I really want to thank you, Burke, for all that

[5:28] you're doing with this. that hopefully this project will be finished by

[5:32] Thanksgiving. That's that's what they're saying. We were also able to dedicate

[5:38] our fifth and final mural of the season or of this series, I must say, I might

[5:42] say this series. And of course, that is the train mural over there on the

[5:46] Madison lot. I think um right in front of Kings and and that is one of the the

[5:53] nicest historic murals. and and if you get a

[5:57] minute, just go by there and stop and take a look at it because it is really

[6:01] nice and we had a great crowd came out for the dedication. I was really

[6:05] surprised to see all those people and uh you know we we talked a little bit about

[6:09] murals and then Councilman David actually got up and gave us the history

[6:14] of that mural and and it comes from a picture in Councilman David's office and

[6:20] many of those those the pe knows the names of

[6:25] all the people in that picture and many of their descendants still live in

[6:29] Dylan. Of course, it had Mr. Dylan and your grandfather in that picture as

[6:33] well, right? Ta Dylan T JW him and his father. Him

[6:39] and his son. But anyway, it was great a great day and of course um great time.

[6:44] If you don't want to know that history, please please ask Councilman David. But

[6:47] but thank you for that. This month we also had a couple scholarship gaylas or

[6:52] events. The Hara Manning scholarship over at Bry's, the Rosa D. King

[6:57] scholarship over at the wellness center and council woman there was about 300

[7:01] people in there. It was it was a big event.

[7:06] This month was also nurses month. So, you know, we got to go over to the

[7:11] hospital and and celebrate the nurses and and of course,

[7:17] we appreciate everything that Mloud Dylan does for this community and the

[7:21] city of Dylan and they couldn't do what they do without the dedication of of

[7:25] those nurses in the hospital there. They it really really great to have that that

[7:31] facility here and all those nurses. So, I did want to take a minute to thank

[7:35] them. Also, I was able to represent the city of Dylan at the PD Denim Day over

[7:40] in Marian. And if you don't know what Denim Day is, that's that's uh I guess

[7:45] it kind of commemorates domestic violence and kind of brings it to the

[7:49] forefront. And there was a big crowd over there for that. So, that was that

[7:52] was also a really good good event to to attend. And also speaking of Marian, we

[7:58] were also able to go over to the airport for the Marian airport open house. And

[8:05] everybody always says, "Why you go to the Marion airport open house?" Well,

[8:08] that is the airport that we're supposed to use. You know, we're not supposed to.

[8:12] We do use that airport a lot when someone comes to town and visits and

[8:16] flies. That probably is the closest airport for them to come into. And um so

[8:21] we do we do push them over there if they ask. So, um, that was that was a great

[8:27] event. And lastly, we had the National Day of Prayer across the street over

[8:31] here, and it was a really good attended event. There were lots of lots of people

[8:35] came out, lots of good prayers for the community. And I do want to thank all

[8:40] the ministers in our community. They do a lot of job, a lot of work, praying,

[8:45] not only for the city of Dylan, but the surrounding community. And I do want to

[8:49] thank them for their faithfulness faithfulness to our community and to our

[8:54] citizens. And with that, that's all I have. Mr. Rogers. Okay. Thank you,

[9:01] Mayor. Uh, first thing I have tonight is I want to introduce y'all to someone. I

[9:06] promoted one of our workers to be the public works supervisor. His name is

[9:11] James Jacobs. I'm going get up. Speak speak about James for a minute. This is

[9:17] James. Um, most of you know James, some of you do not, but James has been a

[9:23] dedicated employee of the city of Dylan for 20 years. He's worked in each

[9:28] department in public, public works. He's worked in sanitation and storm water,

[9:33] streets. Uh, I'm very confident and proud of James. I think he's going to do

[9:37] a great job. I think he'll, you know, fit right in where I left off. He and I

[9:41] coordinate a lot together. I'm going to help him any kind of way that I can, but

[9:45] I think he's an asset to the city of Dylan and he's going to be, you know,

[9:49] very good for what we need him to do. But this is James Jackets. If y'all need

[9:53] anything, get the man to call. Thank you, James.

[10:00] Congratulations.

[10:04] We can get you his number.

[10:09] But he he'll be a good one. You might want to go stop

[10:15] Next thing I want to discuss tonight is the budget. If all of you can get your

[10:21] packet out, this is proposed budget for 2025 to

[10:25] 2026. I don't know if any of you's had a chance to look at it. Uh I gave you a

[10:30] few brief highlights in the the last council meeting.

[10:36] Uh what you see in front of you is a balanced budget for water and sewer and

[10:41] the general fund. So let's see are the reported

[10:46] numbers here year to date for 2025 is that is that through 10 months? That's

[10:52] through 10 months. So if I look at that and I um extrapolate that out to 12

[11:00] months, right? It looks like we're uh a significant amount over budget. Is

[11:06] that correct? Yeah, because we didn't budget 100% of

[11:12] our revenues. You talking about for last year? I'm talking about where we at now,

[11:16] year to date, you know, where we are and um you know, if I if I read this

[11:23] correctly, uh the

[11:27] our the 2.2 2 million6. Which page you looking at? I'm one one of eight. One of

[11:34] eight. Okay. All right. And is that 37,000?

[11:40] Huh? Yeah. It shows like you got 26,000 left in this budget year. So you're

[11:46] looking at revenue, huh? You're looking at the revenue.

[11:50] Okay. Revenue side. Okay. My bad. Yes, I am.

[11:55] Um because the Okay, so we're in good shape there. So we're 10% over budget in

[12:01] revenue now. Okay. Um and you're [Music]

[12:07] anticipating Okay, good. So you're anticipating that to be with the under

[12:14] your recommendation that we So that's really kind of an

[12:19] underestimation of what we're going to do this year. Okay. All right. All

[12:23] right. We don't budget 100%. We try to at least page. Yeah. But you know when

[12:31] when I translated this, we're pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. So,

[12:38] I didn't even look at, you know, be able to get a balanced budget and do what

[12:42] we're trying to propose in in the general fund is a 3 mill tax increase

[12:47] that's involved in this budget, right? And a 5% sanitation

[12:52] increase. And that will offset a 12% insurance premium

[12:59] increase and also which is the 70 80,000. Yes, sir. But the good

[13:06] thing about it is we only have to budget half of that money for this year because

[13:09] it'll start in January. So we'll finish out the rest of this budget with our

[13:13] current rate. When January starts, we'll pick up the new premium rate.

[13:18] So it ended up being about 35 or 40,000 that we had to use additional funds

[13:25] for. So the next thing is is this budget also includes a $1,200 pay increase for

[13:33] every employee. And for most employees, hourly

[13:37] employees, that's like a 3% raise. Some of them a little more than 3%, some

[13:42] maybe a tad bit less, but for the average employee that's a 3% raise

[13:47] across the board. Basically CPI. Basically CPI. And the good thing about

[13:52] this, there's no um money taken out of depreciation to balance this budget. You

[13:59] know, we're still funding the depreciation. So, we were able to

[14:02] balance it with no loans or, you know, depreciation money used.

[14:08] So, but there is no capital expenditures in the general fund, which you know, we

[14:13] all talked the department heads and myself and everybody, we in pretty good

[14:16] shape with capital expenditures in the general fund. And a lot of that's due

[14:20] the state earmarks we've received in the past as far as buying equipment and

[14:25] police guards and and equipment at public works. So, we felt like we could,

[14:29] you know, go another year without having to, you know, budget anything. But, we

[14:33] do have some capital coming in. We have a new fire truck that will arrive in the

[14:38] next few weeks. Am I right, Keith? Yes. First of June. First week of June should

[14:42] have it. So, we do have a new fire truck coming. We did purchase a new police car

[14:47] last month with some money, you know, state money. And we also have a new

[14:51] street sweeper that's, you know, $300 off this $300,000 piece of equipment

[14:55] will be coming in in the next couple months also. So, we're going to, you

[14:59] know, stay pretty decent shape equipment wise and vehicle wise and all that in

[15:04] the general fund. But that's my recommendation as

[15:08] far as general fund is concerned. Unless you guys see anything different, you

[15:13] know, a 3 mill tax increase is generate $66,000, which I, you know, told you

[15:19] guys about in the last meeting. And for your information and I know you know

[15:24] people you represent and all will ask and from our standpoint nobody wants to

[15:30] raise taxes. I understand that but we're in a time now that you you got to do

[15:35] everything you can to generate revenue and inflation is especially in project

[15:40] wise and things like that. We had a bid opening for wastewater treatment plant

[15:44] upgrades this past Thursday. I'm just telling you how much inflation is that

[15:49] we were projecting it to be $8 million. When the bid came in, it's $17

[15:54] million. And that's that's what we're facing on our end trying to figure out

[15:58] how to fund these things. And there's only a little bit of money we can raise

[16:02] and a 3 mil tax increase is, you know, we we don't want to have to raise taxes,

[16:07] but we have to do what's best for the city. Keep you lose that opportunity

[16:11] every year. Keep us in good. Like you can catch up. You got to do what we can

[16:16] to give us a good operating. And what I was going to tell you is like

[16:21] a $100,000 home, it's a $12 increase in taxes. $200,000

[16:28] home be $24 more. So that's that's a basis of,

[16:34] you know, probably the average home prices in dealing with people home. It's

[16:37] a 12 12 to $25 increase. Of course, the more your house costs go up a little

[16:44] bit. sanitation at 3%. What's a 5% sanitation

[16:49] increase? So that's going to take the roll cart to

[16:53] [Music] $3749 something like that. Yeah. And it

[16:59] was how much? It's going from 3568 to 37.4 is that one. So it's like a $1.7

[17:07] 79 increase. So we tried to, you know, we did do a

[17:12] 10% sanitation rate last year. So we tried to, you know, we realized that,

[17:16] you know, things are tough for everybody and we're trying to, you know, keep it

[17:19] at a minimal increase for everybody. I think the budget looks

[17:27] good from that stand. Any got any questions you'd like to ask on the

[17:33] general front? I know that's fast and

[17:40] still got time to look at it till next month. We'll try to do first

[17:43] reading this month and and do the second reading next month. Unless you guys have

[17:49] any questions or any changes or anything you think you see

[17:57] different water and sewer. Yeah, I'm going to water and sewer now.

[18:02] So what we're ordering

[18:08] store going back to general fund right quick. So with that budget that'll be a

[18:13] budget of general general fund of

[18:20] 7,532,588. Water and sewer total budget proposed is $4,78,774.

[18:30] general fund. The two capital expenditures were

[18:34] requested in general fund. One's a vehicle, one general fund. I mean, I'm

[18:40] sorry. I'm sorry. My fault. Water and sewer is a 3% increase on sales. Going

[18:46] back to what you said, last year we did a five. I tried to cut it back to a

[18:50] three. I think that the profit margin in general fund is where we like it to be

[18:56] around 20% 15 to 20%. So, we still got financially sound there, but we still

[19:02] got to maintain that that margin for projects like I

[19:07] was matching grants. The projects are millions of dollars. You got to keep

[19:12] this money here to keep it viable and able to match these grants and, you

[19:16] know, and do repairs and all we need to do. But it's

[19:20] a talking about water and sewer. Yeah, water and sewer.

[19:24] The base cost Janet can tell you what the base cost rates will be. Okay. The

[19:28] base cost right now is

[19:33] is $561 cent for water in town. It's going to go to 5.78 which is 17. Um per

[19:42] gallon it's going up to 7 cents per gallon. Outside base cost will be $1.15

[19:50] and 19 cent per thousand. And um that's your water and sewer rates on the F

[19:55] 5,000 which is an average of 5,000 um right now it's

[20:01] $8741 it'll go to $9083 for 5,000 gallons of water and

[20:06] that's water store and sanitation with the 3%.

[20:16] That answer question

[20:22] garbage. Yeah. What about storm drains? That's not in

[20:26] that. No, that's another I didn't do anything with storm water fees at this

[20:31] time. You know, I wanted to have that discussion.

[20:35] If you we pay it's $4 now for a resident, $5 for business. We haven't

[20:41] been up since we implemented the storm water fee.

[20:46] You know, if we go up a dollar, it generates 30 some more thousand miles a

[20:50] year. I think I figured it maybe 32,000 a year. If we go up a dollar on

[20:56] residential and dollar on commercial, I didn't really put that in because I

[20:59] hadn't discussed with you guys about that. I didn't know how you felt about

[21:03] it. If we can balance it without it, I would

[21:07] try to read that off.

[21:11] Now the the these rates you're talking about they're prime this is all

[21:16] residential or residential and no it's all it's residential and commercial now

[21:20] the produce rate will go up also did you have that number? Yes, it it'll

[21:26] go up. It'll go up the same percentage rate up everybody. Yeah,

[21:34] it'll go up to 479. 479. That'll be an increase.

[21:40] That's 3%.

[21:44] They're our biggest store users, so they'll generally play more.

[21:51] I think it's a, you know, for way inflation is I think we're being

[21:57] responsible for the city and, you know, doing what we have to do to keep us

[22:02] moving

[22:05] forward. Going back to storm water, you know, that's your guys opinion. Storm

[22:11] water operates on its own account. You know, we have a fund balance of 330 some

[22:16] thousand in storm water. Now, we do use that money for matches and for equipment

[22:21] repairs and and two employees. Um, I I think we'll be fine if we remain where

[22:27] we are. And if you had some

[22:33] granted, you know, we have matching money general fund. We don't have to

[22:38] accumulate money there in order. It's not like sewage has to be separated. So

[22:44] I you know I don't I didn't put it in there but I I don't want to sit here and

[22:47] nickel and dime you know as citizens but you know something to

[22:54] entertain but if you guys are comfortable with leaving it as is I am

[22:57] also we take in about 134,000 a year in

[23:05] but like I say that influence that funds two employees and you know equipment

[23:10] repairs and sometimes we have to do training work things

[23:16] We leave that as is. That's what y'all want. That

[23:21] the what's it called? The big truck. The backer truck. Backer truck. Yes, sir.

[23:28] So, where are you in that? How old is that? That's That's going to be a

[23:32] discussion for too much longer. It's a 2012, but remember, we bought it used,

[23:38] right? But that's a $500,000 piece of equipment.

[23:42] So, we just got it at a shop. It's been in shop for about two months. So, it's

[23:46] just it's specialized piece of equipment. It's hard to get it worked on

[23:50] just anywhere. Then you have to wait in line in the parts and but it's finally

[23:54] got it back. So, you know, it's it's ageable. I mean, it's 10, 12 years old,

[24:00] 13, whatever it is. But, I think as long as we take care of it, it should last a

[24:04] few more years.

[24:08] Where are we going on the storm water project?

[24:12] Storm water project. Uh we have a pre-construction meeting on June the

[24:17] 10th. So once they we have pre-construction

[24:21] meeting and it'll be a notice to proceed and contractor should be starting

[24:26] closely by there. That's been another challenge going on in my office with

[24:31] Janet also is obtaining 42 easements. 43. Well, well, we did combine a lot of

[24:37] a lot of easements and trying to get folks to sign easements on their

[24:40] property and some of them live out of town and, you know, this and that and

[24:44] it's, you know, it's pretty difficult, you know, time consuming, a lot of

[24:48] talking and emailing and mailing letters and trying to get people to understand.

[24:55] You decided how much of it we ought to be able to get done.

[25:00] Well, the office of resilience is trying to obtain us some more money before we

[25:04] can do the whole thing, but it's it's it's an appropriation through Congress

[25:08] some kind of way that they're trying to get this extra money. As of now, we're

[25:11] doing two two phases down by the city shop and the Lucius Road, which is about

[25:17] I think it was somewhere around $9 million or something like that that

[25:22] we're able to do now. So if we could get the rest of the funding, it' be like a

[25:26] $12 million project. So we have a $9 million project. What kind of

[25:30] abbreviation of water is that going to give us down? I can't answer that. They

[25:35] designed it to hydraulic engineers and all, you

[25:41] know,

[25:50] satisfac where it comes out at the end. Wasn't the first thing though? Was

[25:56] it Where is it that they had that pipe that those larger pipes are going to a

[26:01] smaller pipe? Yeah, there's a couple of those around town that have been

[26:05] identified. One's over here on Hampton Street and there's another one. Uh think

[26:11] where the other one was. Two phases or was that not a part of

[26:16] Hampton? I think that's in a different phase.

[26:22] Now the one crossing of the railroad track through Hampton, we're not

[26:26] changing that. Not that on down where the shop is where let's

[26:32] let's get back to this budget then we'll go back to

[26:37] that. But anyway, I think you know budget is balanced for water and sewer

[26:42] and general fund. Um there is some capital expenditures in the water and

[26:46] sewer department of a vehicle, a tractor and cutter, spray field, a commercial

[26:54] moore, and a equipment shelter. Total of $180,000 capital

[27:00] outlet. So everything's budgeted. Like I said, it's in balance. Um think it looks

[27:08] good. unless you guys have any questions. Anything you see that needs

[27:10] to be changed, but you know, Janet and I,

[27:14] especially Janet's worked very hard on getting this his number together and I

[27:18] think it's well put together and I'm comfortable with it and Janet is

[27:23] also y'all have any more questions. We'll have

[27:28] Yep. Like I said, you'll have this. You can look at it when you have more time.

[27:32] We have another month before we do the second reading if you got any questions

[27:36] then. If you have any questions between then and now and the next meeting, give

[27:40] me a call. That way we can talk about it because we'll have to we have to have a

[27:46] public hearing in our next meeting to uh finalize the budget. But tonight we'll

[27:51] do a first reading on it and we can still order it if we need

[27:56] to. That's all I have far as the budget in case you guys have anything else. Now

[28:03] the money for the uh sewer for the school. We got this fun. Yeah, that's

[28:08] our done. That project it's closed

[28:15] out. Okay. The last thing I have real quick is some of you guys went to the

[28:20] municipal association annual meeting last year. Um this will be taking place

[28:25] again around the same time, July 16th through the 20th at Hilton's Head.

[28:32] Uh, if you want to go, you need to get with Tina and let her know our

[28:35] reservation times coming up. I think May the 30th. We You need to know by May the

[28:40] 30th, I think. Is that right? June. June. June 30th. June. Okay. 1st of

[28:46] June. We'll get with Tina. If you would like to go, let her know as soon as you

[28:51] can. I know some of you went last year. If you new folks want to go, it may be

[28:56] beneficial to you guys to see how government works.

[29:01] Yeah, I don't know. You guys that went will it be beneficial for him to go if

[29:05] you want to go again? Tim says yes. So, like I say, you got a few weeks to think

[29:09] about it and uh give Miss Tina and

[29:14] she'll get y'all signed up. But other than that, that's all I have and I'm

[29:18] going turn it over to finance director. [Applause]

[29:25] Thank you. General fund. Our total of all cash

[29:30] accounts

[29:34] 4,96,892. We brought in $32,463 more in 25 than we did in 24. We

[29:42] spent

[29:45] $139,261 more in 24 than we did in 25 there. And those grant funds are in

[29:55] that. And of course, I pay general fund back

The City of Dillon Council Meeting 5/12/25 Part 1

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