I didn't want us to have 800,000 .
Right.
All right. I am now calling to order this regularly scheduled meeting of the
Hamburg Township Board of Trustees, set for today, Tuesday, August 18th at
7:00 PM.
Would everybody present please rise and join me in the pledge to the flag?
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and
to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Thank you.
Michael, would you once again please call the roll?
Anybody sneak out on us?
Looks like we're here.
Supervisor Negri?
Present.
Clerk Dolan is present. Treasurer Daniels?
Here.
Trustee
Carter-Sieve?
Here.
Trustee Hughes?
Present.
Trustee Menzies?
Here.
Trustee Miller?
Here.
All right. Full board.
Thanks everyone for coming out tonight.
First, we will have our opening call to the public, but there ain't nobody here,
so there will be no opening call to the public.
Moving on to our consent agenda. We have our regular meeting minutes from our board
meeting on August 6th, our work study minutes from
that same date, August 6th, the DPW monthly report for the month of
July, our approved MUC minutes for July 14th,
bills list dated today,
and one additional bill for bills list,
which is from Huron Lake Weed Control.
Do I have any action on the consent agenda as posted?
I move as presented.
All right.
I'll second.
Moved by Dolan, seconded by Menzies, to approve the consent agenda as
presented.
Any discussion?
All in favor?
Aye.
Aye. Any opposed? All right, we're good.
We have some changes to the agenda.
I'll make a motion that we approve tonight's agenda as published with
three additions,
two of them being invoices, and then a second closed
session regarding police contract negotiations.
The second one for property acquisitions that we-
Oh, yeah. That one's already on there.
Right.
Second one for
property acquisitions that got moved over from our 6:30 meeting.
I'll second.
Sorry about that.
I'll second it.
All right. Moved by Dolan, seconded by Miller.
Any other changes, additions, deletions?
All in favor?
Aye.
All right.
No unfinished business. Freedom River Fall Festival.
Fourth annual.
All right.
Scheduled for October 17th. So
Freedom River is requesting a permit to hang
the end of the road banner as we've done every other year,
beginning September 1st through the end of October.
The township has to make the request through the Livingston County Road Commission.
So
that's why it's before us.
Okay.
Make a motion to support the recommendation to
the county, is that correct?
Yeah.
For the approval of the banner for the Freedom
River-
Fall Fest
... Fall Fest, sorry. Fall Fest.
All right. I'll second that. Moved by Miller, seconded by Negri, to support the
petition to the County Road Commission for the banner.
Any discussion on this?
All in favor?
Aye.
Aye. Any opposed?
All right. Motion carries. Let me just add that to my calendar.
Saturday, October 17th.
We can just get one festival done.
Yeah.
You just can't get enough of it.
I know. Yeah.
All right. Very good.
Next up, we have the two bills lists, bills that were added to
tonight. The first one is the MERS invoice, which I think we all would like to
skip, but we knew this was coming. This is the
invoice from MERS pursuant to the
negotiations with patrol regarding benefit
enhancement
for $413,000.
Motion to pre-payment to MERS for
$413,884.
Second for some discussion.
Yes.
All right. Moved by Dolan, seconded by Miller. Discussion.
Where's the money coming from?
That's what we're going to discuss.
Yeah.
It's coded to the police fund right now.
So
I attached on your fourth quarter amendment that
we already approved.
We did these back in July.
We are moving money out of general
fund,
101 general fund, into 207 police
operations. That particular
general ledger number is the MERS funding deficiency line
item.
The question is,
are we going to
require
that money to be paid back to the general fund from the
police fund once they get actual cash
from the December tax collection?
That's
really what's before us.
We have, if you don't
require that,
we have a policy of 125%
funding reserves,
undesignated reserves of 125% of the previous year's
expenditures
Before that, I don't have it with me.
Does anybody have their
budget with them?
No.
We have monies
set aside, such as in this current budget year, $300,000 for
parking lot, future parking lot repair,
$100,000 for future-
200,000.
What's that?
200,000 for the parking lot.
Parking lot. 100,000 for elections.
Is this the paper?
Yeah. Yes. Did I hand that to you, or is it yours?
No, it's mine.
Oh. It's mine now.
No, it isn't.
We have approximately $500,000 in reserve funds,
specific reserve funds, election equipment,
regular equipment,
vehicle purchase,
parking lot,
weed harvesting.
And then that leaves us, after the 125%,
leaves us a balance of
just under $100,000.
So we would, if we're not going to
recapture these funds in December,
we would need to eliminate
the reserve funds of about 500,000.
We would have to eliminate 415,000 and then less
$97,000, or else we're violating our own policy and we'll go below the
125.
Mike, we knew going into this that we had that outstanding.
This board approved it to come out of the general fund when
we first looked at it.
We knew we had it going in.
How did it not get included? In fact, I believe at
the
strategic planning, we talked about that that was outstanding,
as
was the
IRS issue,
those monies, and those would hit the general fund. We discussed it.
We can't now, because the police millage got passed,
change our mind and go to them and say, "Okay.
It was originally going to come out of the general fund, but now it's not.
It's got to come out of the police fund."
I strongly disagree with that. I think it needs to come
from where we intended it to come from.
There was a lot more involved in that, not just the police
contract when we made that decision to go forward with that
plan. So,
I don't think we can change our mind now because-
I don't recall that conversation at all.
I went back and
I did a little bit of research because I was-
Yeah. Go ahead
... taken aback at our last meeting-
Yep
... discussion. And actually, it was you who brought it up
at the strategic planning and said, "We have these two
items coming out-"
We need to address it.
"... general fund," when we were talking about the percentage
that we needed to set aside. So,
I just feel that we can't just change our mind now because the millage was
passed.
Well, thankfully, we have a little bit of money that we were going to transfer into
the police budget this upcoming year that we don't need to anymore.
Well, there was also a discussion about that, Jason.
Now, you're getting into a second point.
It's $555,000-
It's $555,000
... that we transferred.
We transferred, and
Nick was pretty strong on this, that that money would be a
good cushion to
allow us to go the 10 years.
Mm-hmm.
If the millage passed, having that 555 in the
police budget would be a good cushion going into this
next 10 years. And we discussed that as well.
Okay. So the police is going to bring in, what is it, more than
$800,000 than what they're budgeted for.
Just this summer.
The budget that's already passed is not contemplated on the millage passing.
100%. That's correct.
Mm-hmm.
And if that number is correct, you are right, because it's a-
Well, half a mil brings in $753,000.
Okay.
They were two and a half, less the rollback.
I think they were at two three something.
2.6.
2.6, and they're now at three, so-
That's like a-
... six and
a half or whatever, 0.6 and a half.
Mm-hmm.
Half a mil brings in 753, so somewhere north of 800,000, I would
imagine. I don't know the exact number.
So, but that's the way you make a 10-year
millage work is that first year, you invest all that money.
That's
how come at the end of that, you have a little bit of monies
left to do that, right? And we've been doing this for a
long time. If you probably go back and look at all of our
first-year millages, that's how we did that, because we budget with the
understanding that it doesn't pass, and we know that when we collect that money in
December, in essence, it gives us a little bit of a savings,
right? To allow us year eight, nine, and ten to have the monies we
need.
That's been our past practice in this organization for the last
20 years that I can think of.
We knew this 400,000 was coming, and we thought it was going to
come out of last budget year. And just reading this document you gave us, it talks
about fourth quarter police fund.
What is that referencing, fourth quarter,
on the second page of that? It just says fourth quarter.
Just make sure we're talking, that you pulled this out of this year's,
not last year's.
This was-
Fourth quarter from last year.
Fourth quarter in last fiscal year.
Mike is-
The board already approved this in July.
Yeah. Okay, so isn't this
money already earmarked somewhere?
No, it was not journalized or dealt with because
no invoice actually came
So it will be journalized. We don't need to change any
amendments. This amendment is still valid from last year.
This invoice is from last fiscal year.
This is going to be billed back to last fiscal year,
journalized for last fiscal year, but in
reality, our starting
projected fund balance of 63027, which is
8.13,
is not realizing the reduction of this 415.
So our starting projected
less 415 changes your
remaining fund balance.
All right. So
just to be clear, this invoice is dated today, so you're
going to get them to change the invoice date to June 30th?
No, this
payment is from action that occurred January
1st, 2026.
I get it, right? That we've been asking for months for this document-
You're right
... so we could take care of it.
Right.
But I don't know how you go back to last fiscal year.
This is invoiced. This invoice then isn't good.
It is good. The bills list you just approved,
a large number of those that are dated
after June 30th are being paid. They're earmarked from
last fiscal year.
I know that...
Okay.
So the date of August 18th is not a problem?
No, not a problem.
If it were a problem, would MERS change the date on that invoice?
Well, it took six months to get this one.
I know.
All right. So this fourth quarter budget amendment that we already did-
Mm-hmm
... transferred 413 and change
from our general fund to the police fund.
Is that what this is telling me?
That's
what the action was,
but-
But it didn't happen
It didn't happen. It was never journalized because we were waiting for the invoice.
We didn't know what was. Right.
So how did the books balance at the end then?
If there's a journal entry that says we moved-
We haven't audited yet
... 413, well, we moved $413,000-
There is no journal entry yet.
There's no journal entry.
There was no journal entry made.
So this document you got from, is from what?
This second page you gave us that says that-
This is from the board packet back in July.
If you guys remember, we had two or
three pages of budget amendments.
I only attached one because it has to do with this particular invoice.
We did all these budget amendments back in July, prepared by
Michelle Lewis.
If it makes you all feel comfortable,
you seem to be questioning my knowledge here.
I did discuss every bit of this with Michelle Lewis at
about 5:30 this afternoon,
and I assure you everything that I'm sharing with you was discussed in
our conversation, and we simply have a decision to make.
Where do you want the money to come from?
Excuse me. We've already made the action.
It's already a done deal. It's coming from general fund.
Right.
That's done.
Are we going to insist that it's paid back in December from the police fund?
If not, then we have a policy to address.
Because the loss of this 413,000-
That's going below
... is going to set us below our policy of 125%.
Yes.
Given these earmarks we've already got.
Unless we eliminate the earmarks.
Unless we eliminate the earmarks or get the money from somewhere else.
Or-
Like the 525 we were going to give to the police this year.
Well, the 555-
555
... 555
is contemplated in the budget we already passed.
Mm-hmm.
And I believe his remaining fund balance is
under 1,000 bucks, like 500 bucks.
Oh, boy.
He doesn't carry a fund balance.
If you look at the budget that we passed, his department budget
for the police
with the 555 transfer-
Mm-hmm
... leaves
very tight budget.
Exactly.
Now they're going to draw in these additional monies.
Yes. Yep, to the tune of 800,000. Which means-
That's it
... even if we
take this 413, they're still going to be 400,000 in the hole.
Yes, they are.
Is there any way to have them pay it back over a number of years
and still give you enough to-
Thank you.
... save your reserve for the general fund issue?
We could do that, sure.
So the-
We would still need to
amend this document though, because-
We don't because the 125%, all it
states is Jason has to present a plan.
That's all it states. We don't have to modify the document.
If it's less than 125% but greater than 100%, if I remember correctly
how we worded that-
Mm-hmm
... then the supervisor presents a plan-
Correct
... on how we're going to get back to the 125%.
Mm-hmm.
And over the next five years, we are going to decrease our
spending, right, or whatever, to get us back to the
125%.
I'm going off of memory here. I've pulled that, but I'm pretty sure-
Sure. Yeah
... I'm pretty sure that's how that's worded.
Was there a timeline?
No, it's just a plan.
To get back to 125? Okay.
Because you don't want to put that on there, because if all of a sudden something
major catastrophic happens-
Yeah
... right, and we've got to spend $500,000 in the police, right, that drops
us down, how do we recover that in a year, right? That's not possible.
So we didn't put a timeline on it. We just said-
And unexpected catastrophic expenses are precisely why we have reserves.
Exactly.
That's why.
It's why we're sitting there.
Mm-hmm.
I guess what I'd like to do is probably need to review the policy.
I guess I'd really like to get the exact budget with all these
adjustments to see where exactly what our undesignated reserves
are across the board, if we're this tight where we need to
be. So before I would make any decision on needing to
be reimbursed, I guess I'd want to see hard numbers, like the factual numbers for
each one for undesignated stuff. And then let's look at that policy, because
I'm pretty sure it was worded between 100 and 125%, the
supervisor just has to make a recommendation. It's not a policy change.
We're going to follow the policy. We're going to come up with that plan, and if the
plan that he presents after he sits down with his leadership
team and you guys come back and say,
"Okay, over the next 10 years, they're going to give us
$50,000." Right? Or eight years, right?
Make the number work or whatever, right? That's the plan.
If that's how we want to do it.
But-
Or we reduce spending
... or reduce spending or not ask for it back.
There's different-
In my opinion, I would only support two things.
One, removing the line items on the
designated reserves, parking lot, what have you, that have to be kicked down the
road to another time, or police
reimburse us, because it is 100% a police expense.
Police matter.
It was a police expense because this board made it a
necessity to save these residents
a decent amount of money.
Over time.
Over time . Right? We did this-
But we knew it was going to be a hit right now
... we knew we did this because every new hire that's
in a union right now, in the future, has a fixed cost to us now.
Mm-hmm.
And instead of this continually being a problem, this board,
before a few of us sat here at the table, you guys all committed just over a
million bucks, right, into this fund to try to
make it equal, and then come to find out we're still $400,000 short.
That's not happening anymore.
Joanna brought a
reminder and clarity
that
all the way up until strategic planning, the board had already made the
decision in closed session, contract negotiations on this
IV-13. We did not discuss it then. That's why I felt it was important for
us to remind ourselves during strategic planning,
don't forget about this. Those bills coming due.
We need to decide where it's coming from.
So.
What
fiscal budget year is Tony really wanting to
repave
the parking lot?
He has not
identified a specific year.
He just want us to set the money aside, because at some point in the next-
It's going to happen
... six or seven years, it will need to happen-
And we'll be able-
... based upon the deterioration.
And we want to keep paying cash for things.
Yes.
Can't we, as we go through the next five
budget cycles,
make sure he's giving enough-
Quite a few bucks aside
... to get him back to where he is today?
We can, sure. Knowing that that big expense is coming down the pipe-
I think that's the best idea
... yes, we will have to do that.
And-
The discussion that we had at strategic planning was that,
Jason had originally recommended, or Tony or whoever,
$100,000.
Mm-hmm.
And
Jason then requested that we-
Audible
An additional 100 because we could afford it at the time.
Right, that we increase it. And my question was about
Julie's
goals and objectives included the engineering review or plan
or whatever. And we had just received,
apparently, a quote for that. It was $5,000 to get that done.
So
that 200,000, I wouldn't want to see it all go away, but I
think that we could push that off
to help
cover the costs.
And come the end of our fiscal year, if we're just very responsible-
Right
... throughout the next 10 months-
Mm-hmm
... then if we don't do projects or they come in under budget, hopefully in
different spots, then those extra funds, then we balance this thing back out.
We return funds, unused funds every year.
We return funds every year.
Right.
And we also budget very conservatively on our revenue side.
Right.
So.
And if those apartments go through, we're going to have a lot more money, some of
it in sewer funds, but some in water tap fees that we were not planning on having.
That's-
So-
... a good source of revenue
... I would be in support of keeping this as a status quo, that we do
our budget transfer as initially planned, and then I'll let the
executive team talk a little bit more about it,
but I don't see us getting under our 125% till the end of the fiscal year
because those reserve funds that we're going to designate.
And then we might just have to amend that budget at that point to, if
we budget at 300 and we only get to do 150, right?
Those are things that we can look at then, but at this point,
I think that those monies,
I'm comfortable leaving where they were. So currently are.
All right.
Your motion, Mike, was just to pay the bill?
Approve payment, yeah.
Okay.
Because nothing else is needed because we've already done this.
Because we've already done this.
Yep.
We've already done it in the budget amendment.
Yep.
All right. Was your motion seconded, by Miller?
Yes, I did.
Discussion.
So we still have time to discuss where we're-
We got the entire fiscal year to decide.
Yeah.
No, seriously, we have the entire fiscal year.
I don't want to drag it out like that, but-
But we could,
and it might-
Yeah
... very well come towards the end.
We might sit there-
Right
... and have to say, "Okay, police," and right?
Mm-hmm.
Give a little bit. Maybe it's a split. Maybe it's a 75/25, right?
Whatever type thing, but-
You guys picked through that a little bit and how you're going to keep us at-
Yeah. We'll have to-
How you're going to keep us at 125%.
Right?
By removing the
designated reserve money, eliminating the projects.
Right.
They can be added on at the end of the fiscal year.
Sure.
But in the meantime,
we need to show
staying north of 125 and that-
Well, that money, is it already moved on July 1?
The
parking lot project, I was going to call it the Tony project, but the parking lot
project, are those funds already designated,
or is that at end of the fiscal year that they become designated?
They're designated- I think they're designated ... for the sake of our...
For the general fund. They're designated as our
fund. They're somewhere off in la-la land collecting interest wherever
Jen has them.
That's right. They've invested.
Lots of interest.
So can you bring us-
That's my plan, by the way, is for Jen to just make more interest for us.
That's what I'm talking about.
Can you bring a good financial report to us that
spells out our reserves, designated, undesignated?
Because I know for years we thought we were putting things in certain designated
areas, and we had just found out that that wasn't actually
happening.
Yes.
Right? We were earmarking money in places, and they weren't actually getting marked
that way.
The parking lot is actually a perfect example because we had put $100,000 towards
that parking lot in previous years.
And it's-
Or the previous year,
and it wasn't showing up anywhere.
Because we weren't actually-
Doing it
... doing it correctly in the background.
Now we're doing it, so yes.
So.
Even though last year I asked for an additional 100, that actually brings us up to
3 because we found that 100 was there.
We realized that we had already earmarked that-
Yeah
... original 100-
Yeah
... plus the 200 last year.
Yeah.
So we've got 300 right now sitting there.
Yeah, that-
That we marked
... document you have, Joanna-
It just shows-
It's not...
So that's an old one, yeah. Oh, it is. Yeah.
Next meeting, could you present this if you can?
Yes, I will try to do that.
With updated-
Yeah.
I don't know, between the two of you.
It kind of comes out of your-
Accountant?
Your accounting.
He can have accounting.
But I look at your report, I look-
No, I don't.
I look at him because he's the-
You are blessed
... he's the one that brings us the budget, and that's my apologies.
I'm not trying to be disrespectful.
We understand what you want.
So
the executive team-
We locked his own payment out or...?
Woo.
Well, it's a good discussion.
There we go. All right. Anything else on this?
All in favor? Aye.
Aye.
Aye. Aye. Any opposed?
Okay.
Go ahead and pay MERS.
Well, if you control, please.
We'll talk later.
And then the second one is just a contractor wanted to get paid.
This is a budgeted item from the wall sign
project down at the corner. Just a reminder, it's the township board
funded, partially funded. The library,
the
Pinckney, Putnam, Hamburg, Kal, Chamber of Commerce, and then there's been some
donations as well. So motion to approve the payment to Cody
Ford for $6,000
for masonry work.
Will there be more coming after this wave soon?
Invoices? Well, yeah, but-
I'll second it for you.
Yeah, we got to- Move by Dolan, second by Miller. We just discussed it today.
We got to-
Right
... we have to invoice the library and-
Right
... the chamber to-
Yes
... bring their money to us. Is he done
with his work? He will be done in the next day, day and a
half, so he doesn't get his check until he's done. Yeah.
I know some of the pretty stuff went, a little section of that went.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, he anticipates a day and a half.
So you said the library's contributing to this?
$5,000. Really?
I don't remember-
And how much is the chamber?
... hearing that.
Yeah. That's nice.
I mean, that's great, but-
Yeah
... communication.
So the
design work was donated by Bruce Donovan, Donovan Construction.
The engineer, he works closely with out of Novi.
The design work was required to be stamped by an engineer for the Livingston
County Building Department. That engineer donated his
time and the stamp.
5,000 from the library, 17,000 from the Chamber of Commerce.
And then is the library funds and the chamber funds coming
to us, or are they just going to pay for their sections percent?
Well, I discussed it with the accounting team today, and the chamber was
up for it. They were like, "We don't care how many checks-
We've got a check
... we cut or whatever."
So-
But to-
They'll take chaos
... keep the project all billed out under our books,
we're going to send them invoices asking for their full.
Okay.
We'll make the project positive.
So this is going to come out of the sign-
Yes
... fund budget, and it's going to get funded by-
We're going to get Michelle, we already created a general ledger account for the
sign-
Well, okay
... project.
So what's the total amount, Guy? Do we know the total amount?
The what? The total amount.
The total amount.
Was it 30- In here
... 35,000?
I don't know. I presented a budget. We approved the budget.
Whatever it is, it's still on budget.
It's not-
It was like 30 or 35,000 total.
Yeah.
Sounds about-
Low 30s is what I remember.
Yeah. So.
So Mike, we're within budget? Yeah, it's not over budget.
So far, every line item has come in on budget.
Okay. So we're staying under budget, and we got additional funds that we weren't
aware of when we approved this, so it's actually costing us less than we initially
planned.
I don't remember... The library wasn't-
No, it wasn't part of our discussion.
No. Mm-mm.
So it's good stuff.
Yeah.
That's good news. More donations are welcome.
Yeah. Yeah.
Did we vote?
Not yet.
All right.
Any further discussion?
No.
All in favor?
Aye. Aye.
Aye.
Aye. Aye.
Any opposed?
Okay.
Thank you.
All right.
I'll make a motion that we go into closed session to
discuss two items, one being property acquisition,
and the second one being police contract negotiations. I'll second.
Because
of their-
Financial
... potential financial impact on the township, that it would be-
Oh, that's a John-
... deleterious
... Brady at all thing. I don't buy into that, but go ahead. Okay, that's fine.
Per MCL. Okay. All right. Moved by Dolan, seconded by Daniels.
Roll call vote, please.
Yes.
Negri?
Yes.
Dolan, yes. Daniels? Yes. Hardesty?
Yes.
Hughes? Yes. Menzies?
Yes.
Miller?
Yes.
All right.
We used to be called trustee or treasurer
or supervisor.
Yeah. No, now it's just last names.
Well.
So we're all equals at this table.
I guess. Okay. Would you like my rationale? Yeah.
Okay.
No? There's rationale behind it. Yeah. What is it?
Love it.
So one, we-