[4:08] Test test test.

[6:33] Yes, ma'am.

[7:57] You're driving.

[8:23] All right, welcome everyone. It is we gave a few extra minutes in case people

[8:26] were still wandering in. It's a couple minutes after six. So, we're going to go

[8:30] ahead and start. Thank you all for coming. U I'm going to run you through

[8:33] the first two slide few slides today and then uh the board is going to take a few

[8:39] slides and run us through the rest of them and then we'll wrap up and do

[8:42] questions at the end. So we're going to give a full budget overview

[8:47] uh which will be a little bit more in depth maybe than the public hearing and

[8:50] then we also have Tom Tant with us from Hazen and Sory to talk a little bit

[8:53] about our water and sewer system specifically to give you that

[8:56] information just to just based on some of the questions that we've been asked

[8:59] the last couple weeks. It'll be a good way to answer a few of those or maybe

[9:03] spur some more questions. So, let's start off. I'm Will Lewis and then we

[9:07] have four of our commissioners here today. We've got we'll start at that end

[9:11] and we've got Brenda down at this end, Tyrone, Mark, and Cynthia. Danny had a

[9:18] little emergency this evening and was supposed to be here, but is not able to

[9:22] be here now. So, we're gonna do his part for him. Next slide, Chad. So, a lot of

[9:28] y'all I see a lot of familiar faces. You've been to listening sessions.

[9:31] You've been where we talked about this. So, I'm gonna move through this

[9:34] relatively quickly, but this is our overall city of Havlock or chart where

[9:38] it's the citizens elect a mayor and commissioners. Mayor commissioners hire

[9:43] a city manager. It's the only employee that actually works for the board. Every

[9:47] other employee works for the city manager. All right. Uh this our mission,

[9:53] core values, and I again, I'm not going to belabor it. A lot of y'all have seen

[9:56] this a bunch. It's also on our website. Uh but we're going to work together

[10:00] enhance quality of life and deliver efficient highquality services while

[10:03] providing for growth and responsible development. And so that first sentence

[10:07] really I think is the one that's most important when the board is doing things

[10:10] like creating a budget, choosing what project we might fund, etc. is looking

[10:16] at that first sentence. All right. All right. This is for perspective.

[10:22] So this is for fiscal year 2526 which ends June 30th.

[10:27] We have 138 employees, 47.4 miles of streets that we take care of

[10:34] and and so we have a shared responsibility for that with DOT. So

[10:38] think Highway 70, Macau, Belltown, Fontana, those are all owned by DOT, not

[10:45] by us. We just remind them what needs to be done there or partner with them. All

[10:50] the other streets are the ones that are ours. We have we're basically 6.3 square

[10:56] miles, 12 parks, and that's everything from city park to the recreation center

[11:04] to smaller parks like Surman's Park, Tarheel, the community parks. We have 12

[11:08] of those. There are 5,966 utility customers. So that's folks that

[11:13] pay water and sewer. We have almost 6,000 of those. That includes the

[11:17] businesses, the non-residential in town. We have 80 miles of sewer main. That is

[11:22] not a typo. We do have more sewer main than we have street. Uh our population

[11:29] right now is 18,193. That's up about 800 from last year. And just real quick on

[11:35] the population, we've talked about this before, but our population changes with

[11:39] the installation because they are a part of our city limits. We were we've been

[11:43] as high as just over 20,000 population, bumping 2122.

[11:48] And then uh with the A6's sundowning and then the Harrier sundowning, we went as

[11:54] low as 16,000 and change. We are now coming back out of that as the F-35

[11:59] squadrons are arriving. We're already back up to just over 18,000 folks that

[12:03] live in the city. And that number is projected to be back to 20,000 by 2030.

[12:09] And then the average home value in Havlock is 186,300.

[12:14] We don't make that up. The county tells us that. The way it works is we set a

[12:18] levy but the county does the assessment and the tax appraisals. The county

[12:22] collects the taxes and gives them back to us. So the county tells us what our

[12:26] average home value is in Havlock and that's 1863. I know some of you in the

[12:29] room are probably like my house is worth more than that. It's it might be and

[12:33] there's some houses that are worth less than that. This is the average. This is

[12:36] the average home value. All right, Chad. Uh our our general fund tax rate right

[12:43] now is 72 cents. uh our advorum tax base is a billion. So what does advorm tax

[12:50] base mean for the perspective of a billion? Um, just to give you an

[12:54] example, this morning we were told, uh, for example, we have 18,000 people. Our

[13:00] tax base is a billion, but Pine No Shores, for example, their tax base is

[13:07] two billion, even though they have a population of 1500 because their average

[13:11] property value is way higher than ours. And that matters because the math is how

[13:16] you end up knowing what you actually pay. And I've given this speech before,

[13:20] so I will give the cliffnotes version. The rate is immaterial. The levy, what

[13:25] you actually pay is what matters. So it's as simple as if I asked you if you

[13:31] wanted to give me if you if you wanted to give me 5% of a

[13:37] thousand or 50% of a million, right? You're going to or in this case 50% of a

[13:42] thousand or 5% of a million. You're going to give me 50% all day. I'll give

[13:46] you the $500. I don't want to give you 5% of a million because that's a way

[13:50] bigger number. The percentage is just a multiplier. What you actually pay is

[13:53] what matters. So our rate, our tax base is lower than most of our communities.

[13:59] The average, we are probably that one of the lowest average home values in the

[14:02] area, 186. It's because we haven't had a lot of new development for the last two

[14:05] decades. So that means the multiplier is larger to get the same amount of money.

[14:11] Our value of one cent. So when we raise taxes by one penny and you're talking

[14:15] about just property value of homes, it's gets us about a about $99,000.

[14:24] So one cent tax rate brings an extra $99,000 into the city.

[14:29] Our general fund right now is 17.6 million, our water fund 3.9, our sewer

[14:35] fund 6.1, solid waste 1.4, storm water 535.

[14:40] The building you're in is about $660,000 a year budget. And then your E911's 185.

[14:47] I'm gonna start at the bottom and go backwards on what those are. E911 is a

[14:51] very restricted line item of funding that we receive from the state. When you

[14:55] see your phone bill used to be on your landline, now it's on your cell phone

[14:59] bill. You pay that little small percentage at the bottom that goes to

[15:02] the state of North Carolina. They then have an algorithmic formula that sends

[15:05] some of that back to us. And we can only spend that for E911 services. So

[15:11] something related to telecommunications, dispatch, things like that. Very

[15:15] restricted fund. It's also very small. We get a very small amount of money

[15:19] every year. Torres and Event Center and all the others are listed separate from

[15:23] the general fund for a reason. The general fund is an account that is used

[15:28] as a service account to you. Everything else is an enterprise fund. They are all

[15:34] supposed to be run as a business. So Tourist and Event Center, we run this

[15:38] like a business. You pay a rate if you want to use it. And that rate is a

[15:41] market rate to pay for the people, the equipment, and the things like that that

[15:45] you rent to be here. Storm water, same thing. And most of you, well, everybody

[15:51] in here that has a residence, you're paying the same $4. And we all pay the

[15:54] same $4 for that. If you have a business, it's a little bit different.

[15:57] Mark will get into that later. Solid Waste. That's the fund where we

[16:01] pay that $20 and change every month and you get all your blue can pickup, your

[16:06] green waste, brown waste, white goods off the side of the road. That fund

[16:10] operates on its own. The part you pay in your utility bill is that line item and

[16:15] that line item alone. Your sewer and your water exactly the same as that.

[16:20] What you pay, the reason when you look at your utility bill, you see water and

[16:22] sewer separate is what you pay for water is to run the water fund. And that is

[16:26] supposed to be run like a business. State of North Carolina requires that

[16:29] we're supposed to charge the rate that actually runs the water plant. Same for

[16:33] the sewer. That's why there are two different rates.

[16:36] All right, next slide. Okay, this is a quick budget schedule. I

[16:40] won't belabor this too much. A lot of you have already seen this and you

[16:44] already kind of know this. Our budget really is an all year process,

[16:49] but our fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.

[16:53] staff really starts working in December and then by January they're starting to

[16:57] put together all of their capital outlay requests and major program requests and

[17:02] then in March and April staff locks down and they start building um what the

[17:07] budget needs to be and then start taking immediate cuts to try to get down to a

[17:11] regular tax level. Then in April and May, the board starts

[17:16] digging into it and working with staff to try to see how they can change the

[17:19] budget or work the budget to get whatever they desire. June is a heavy

[17:24] month of meetings. Y'all, some of y'all in here have been to both of them. We

[17:27] have workshops. We have our public hearing. We choose to do a listening

[17:31] session. Only the public hearing is required by law. We do this because it's

[17:34] more interactive and we can give you a little bit more information timewise.

[17:39] Then we have to approve a budget by June 30. So this year it's usually the last

[17:44] Monday of the month. We give ourselves maximum amount of time to get feedback

[17:47] from you and then adjust the budget. So this time our meeting for that will be

[17:52] June 22nd. The board has added in a workshop which will be Wednesday June

[17:57] 10th and that is to take all the input that we get today, all the input we

[18:02] receive from the public hearing and then for the board to go into a workshop and

[18:06] talk about what they want the final version of the budget to look like based

[18:08] on what we've heard from our citizens. and then for the 22nd for approval. Then

[18:13] July one, we start it all right back over again.

[18:17] All right. And then this is uh an overview of the budget to start

[18:24] perspective on what they're going to dive into a little bit deeper. So right

[18:28] now as the budget sits presented the proposed budget right now would show a

[18:33] threecent tax increase that started at 6 cent and the board has moved some things

[18:38] around and cut a few things um and paid for some things out of general fund to

[18:43] reduce that to three. The user fee increases in permits of 3.3%. So any

[18:48] permit that you might get from the city would go up 3.3. That's not an arbitrary

[18:52] number. 3.3 comes from the consumer price index. That's based off inflation.

[18:57] So 3.3% would mean you would pay the same thing in today's dollars you paid

[19:01] last year for that same permit. Our enterprise funds are proposed right now

[19:05] to go up by 15% in water, 20% in sewer, 7 and a half in solid waste, no change

[19:12] to storm water, and the fees in this building to go to 10%.

[19:17] And that's to keep up with the market on that one. And we're going to dig into

[19:21] those a little bit deeper further in. All our state revenues are taken into

[19:25] account when we do the budget. So there are things that are not within our

[19:30] control. So think about um we used to get what was called an enterprise fee

[19:35] for people that have things in our ride of way like cable, internet, um

[19:40] electricity. We are given that money by the state. We don't always know what

[19:43] they are exactly. So, we project those and they're projected through the North

[19:47] Carolina League of Municipality forecast, which is a pretty accurate

[19:50] tool and that helps us know what we might get from the state, but they're

[19:54] not always right. Just to use an example, our E911 that they predicted

[19:58] this year is going to come in considerably lower than it than it was

[20:02] projected, and we're going to have to make that money up somewhere else. But,

[20:05] we're kind of looking at the crystal ball at that one. What does the state

[20:08] think we're going to receive? And then, we don't know what's going to happen at

[20:11] the North Carolina legislative level. that does affect our budget which is why

[20:16] it is there. We could pass a budget, the state could make a new law, we could

[20:20] immediately have to adjust our budget. They the state typically puts mandates

[20:24] down that cost us money and they don't fund those. So that means we have to

[20:28] fund them ourselves. So we either have to have the money in our own budget or

[20:31] we have to create a way to fund them. Storm water is a is an example of that.

[20:35] Our personnel uh changes by cola which is cost of living adjustment at 3.3%

[20:40] again based on the CPI. So that means a dollar is a dollar. So it means all of

[20:44] our employees could buy the same amount of bread this year that they bought last

[20:48] year. And then 1.7 longevity. Uh I think Brenda is going to get into that at the

[20:54] end. So I won't give all the logic behind the 1.7, but that is for

[20:57] employees that have been here for one year or more.

[21:00] There are two positional changes this year. In a restructuring that we're

[21:04] doing right now, we are actually eliminating one position from our

[21:08] current budget. And then the savings from that elimination is going to fund a

[21:14] nuisance and abatement officer going from part-time to full-time. And then

[21:18] safety coordinator position uh for the entire city and all of our 140

[21:23] employees. And then if you look at the right, these

[21:26] are things that just cost us money that we don't necessarily get a say in, but

[21:30] we have to cover. So our retirement went up by 14.1%. That's the system we have

[21:35] to pay into as a state for all of our employees to be in the retirement

[21:37] system. And then our health insurance, we are self-funded. Some of y'all that

[21:42] have been to these before have seen that number be all kinds of crazy things. We

[21:45] are a self-insured pool. That has been a really good choice by the city. It has

[21:50] helped keep our health insurance costs very reasonable. So some years we're

[21:54] fortunate and we see a 0% change in our health insurance. But then just for an

[21:59] example, if you have four or five employees that are going through major

[22:04] medical issues, cancer treatments, maybe a stroke situation or a major injury,

[22:08] you'll see that spike by 20 or 30% in one year. I think it was only a couple

[22:12] years ago we had a pretty large spike while we were covering that for our

[22:15] employees. Property insurance, we're seeing a 10% increase. We do have to put

[22:20] insurance on the things that we own just like you do. We're seeing a 10% increase

[22:23] there. Workers comp at 1%. Um, we usually put together a contingency fund.

[22:30] We started that gosh 15 years ago and it was when the first

[22:35] time gas prices were spiking like crazy. Um, the manager was having to come back

[22:39] to the board regularly to ask for increases in the budget to cover those

[22:44] gas costs within the line items. And we decided we would create a contingency

[22:48] fund to give to a manager so the manager could use that for those things with

[22:51] approval from the board without having to call a special meeting. This one was

[22:54] budgeted at 50,000. The board decided to pull that 50,000 back in order that gets

[22:59] you about half a penny on your tax rate. So, they pulled that back and used it

[23:02] for something else to try to not increase taxes by that amount.

[23:06] Okay, that's kind of your overview. I'm going to pass it to Cynthia now and

[23:12] she's going to run you through the next few slides

[23:16] and then we'll switch to Mark.

[23:35] Good evening everyone.

[23:39] So the section that I have

[23:43] are slides that are going to discuss our fund reserve trends.

[23:52] as well as the fund balance and retain earnings

[23:57] and of course the proposed budget.

[24:03] And if you look at the current fund reserves trends, you will notice that

[24:08] the general fund balance in 2015 was 5.7 million.

[24:15] And then of course if you go down a little further, you will see that in

[24:19] 2020 we were at 8.9 million, but then if you look at 2023 we're at

[24:25] 7.9. So it shows that we were trending down

[24:31] from the the 8.9 because we went up again but we went

[24:36] back down. But then in 2025 with the general pal

[24:42] sorry with the general fund we had 12.5 million

[24:48] And so the proposal for what's going on with 2026 is 9.7

[24:55] million. And then when you look at the PAL fund

[24:59] in 2015 it was 191,000.

[25:06] But then in 2019 we were at 785.

[25:11] 2023 518.

[25:15] 2025 we had 1 million7,000

[25:21] but for 2026 we're looking at 576. And then of course if you look at the

[25:27] water section we have 20 sorry 2.2 and 2015

[25:34] 2019 3.6

[25:38] 2024 5.6 but for 2026 we're looking at 3.9.

[25:46] And then of course, excuse excuse,

[25:52] » excuse me, ma'am. Pardon me, ma'am. Um, we're going to go through the slides and

[25:57] then afterwards,

[26:07] » well, thank you for pointing that out. But the paperwork I have I have that um

[26:12] paper that shows the 2015. So, you I I won't um bring up the 2015 for today.

[26:19] We'll just discuss the 2017. So, I was in error for not mentioning the 2017

[26:25] amount, but bringing more data into the conversation for 2015

[26:31] because that's the starting point where we're going with this from the 2015

[26:34] conversation. But we can start with just the 2017

[26:38] information.

[26:43] So, in 2017, we have 2.3 for water.

[26:48] If you go up to 2020, we have 4.5. And then, of course, for 2025, we're

[26:55] looking at 5.5. And then 2026 is looking at 3.9.

[27:01] And if we go over to sewer for 2017, you have 5 million.

[27:09] If you go down to 2023, you have 5 million. If you go down to 2024, you've

[27:15] got 4.4, but for 2026 is looking at 2.3.

[27:26] Thank you. Now, here we have the estimated fund

[27:30] balance and retain earnings. And what you'll see

[27:35] are the amounts that we started with with the 12,254,98

[27:40] for the general fund as of July 1st, 2025 with the current new estimate of

[27:45] May 15, 2026 of 9,792.

[27:53] And if you're looking at the numbers, everything in red are smaller numbers

[27:58] than what's on top, the larger numbers. And you see that arrows is showing you

[28:02] that everything was going down. So, there was money coming out, but with the

[28:07] money coming out, there was cost and expenses that we were able to use. And

[28:13] the majority of the cost and expenses that were paid were things that

[28:18] benefited our city. For instance, we were able to purchase ambulance. Um, I

[28:23] don't know how many of you that went to the 250th birthday for Marine Corps in

[28:27] the park. We spent funds when there um we've had the firefighter grant match.

[28:32] We had streets and paving this year. I know a lot of citizens have wanted to

[28:36] have streets paved if this was a paving year. Um some of the income or rather

[28:40] some of the the money went from the city manager severance package as well as the

[28:45] city manager search down to parks and reccks having vehicles and the city park

[28:50] playground. And we just did the ribbon cutting on Friday for the city park

[28:53] playground. And then of course we've also had um the Christmas tree. So

[29:01] according to the slide that's in front of all of us, the city of Havlock was in

[29:06] position to spend some of the money from out of the general fund. And you've

[29:11] always want to be able to spend it out of the general fund instead of being

[29:15] able to tax our citizens. But of course, we want to spend the money for the

[29:19] general fund when the city is healthy, when the the fund itself is healthy. So,

[29:24] you'll see there, we were able to make those types of purchases. And with the

[29:29] POW bill, that is the bill that helps us to pay for the paving. We don't pave

[29:35] every year. We try to pave every couple years so that we can get a larger

[29:41] cushion, get a little bit more bang for the buck. And then of course water and

[29:45] sewer fund. That's a little self-explanatory, but you don't want to

[29:49] have a low water fund because we want to make sure in the event that there are

[29:55] emergencies or problems that there's enough in that fund.

[29:59] If you can go to the next slide, please.

[30:05] And then of course this slide shows you the budget year comparisons

[30:12] from the actual budget from 2024 to 2025 to the budget that we're in 2025 to

[30:19] 2026. So the budget that we're in 2025 to 2026 is not classified as the actual

[30:26] budget because we're still literally in this budget. The numbers could change if

[30:30] something was to occur that wasn't already listed or covered in this

[30:33] particular budget. And what I'd like to point out to you is in the actual budget

[30:38] for 2024 2025 we had 26,181 $660

[30:47] $181,660. But of course for the budget of 2025 to

[30:51] 2026 we had 36 million 682 $682,680. And then our proposed budget in 2026 and

[31:02] 2027 is actually smaller than the current budget that we're in. Our goal

[31:09] is not to just tax the citizens. But one of the reasons why we had a larger

[31:16] operating budget in 2025 and 2026 is because we had large grants that came in

[31:23] to help pay for some of the things that were needed. And so we optimized it and

[31:28] we used it during that time frame. And if we can go to the next slide.

[31:38] And then of course for 2026 through 2027 proposed budget fund balance use.

[31:45] We like being able as I stated before out of the general fund to fund items

[31:54] when it is healthy. But these are one time items. You know fire trucks,

[31:59] ambulance, things of that nature. things that you buy a firet truck once this

[32:04] year and then you might have to buy a firet truck in another 10 or 15 years.

[32:09] So when the general fund is healthy that's when we want to be able to make

[32:14] those types of purchases and we had a healthier general fund therefore we was

[32:20] able to make those types of purchases. We b we purchased an ambulance um three

[32:25] police vehicles we had a backho tractor um

[32:30] so I The large point with me standing here that I want to convey to the

[32:36] citizens is we don't want to just senselessly or carelessly raise taxes.

[32:43] We want to make sure that we're protecting our fund balances and that

[32:46] we're trying to protect the needs of the citizens without having to cut services.

[32:51] Um because from listening to a lot of the citizens, they want to be able to

[32:57] keep the same services. and thank you for your time. And of

[33:01] course, we'll be more than happy to speak to you after everybody reviews

[33:05] their slides.

[33:09] » So, I'm I'm tag in for Danny since he's not here. These were his slides. Um,

[33:14] these are some basic overviews of the general fund to give you some percentage

[33:18] perspective. And so, this fund, remember, general fund is what your your

[33:23] tax dollars are paying for for your property tax. So in this you think about

[33:28] things like recreation, police, fire, EMS, um some of public works, all of

[33:35] admin, finance, uh those things are being paid for in the general fund. IT

[33:40] support. So that one is your heaviest one on personnel. It's because it is a

[33:44] service. This is intended not to make money. You don't make money running

[33:47] parks and wreck. You don't make money providing it for your departments.

[33:52] That's not what they're there for. So these people are there to provide a

[33:54] service. So 33% into operations, 60% personnel, only 7% in capital outlay,

[34:01] which is not horrible, but definitely not at the number that uh we probably

[34:06] would want to be at. From a revenue perspective, you see most of that is

[34:09] state shared and collected, which is taxes. And then our little bit of

[34:13] Powville property or state shared and collected, the ones I talked about are

[34:17] like enterprise funds and all that. I shouldn't say enterprise funds. The

[34:20] enterprise account that we used to receive for utilities in our rideways,

[34:25] property and motor vehicle tax make up 48% of that. So what you pay for your

[34:29] cars, your trucks, your trailers, your house, that makes up the majority of

[34:34] that account. And then about 13% we get through fees, permits, things like that.

[34:38] If you rent a picnic shelter, if you got a building permit, anything like that.

[34:44] All right, these are this is just an overview to

[34:47] show you that cuts before that it even gets to the board.

[34:52] So, the department themselves cut $1.8 million out of the budget um as a part

[34:57] of getting it to the board to try to provide the same level of service

[35:00] without increasing taxes or at the lowest tax rate that they possibly

[35:04] could. And this is just an example of some of the things. This is not

[35:07] comprehensive, but we look at things like in administration, what can where

[35:12] can you save money finance? Some of this is training cuts. Some of it is reducing

[35:16] legal line items. Um it, for example, you might stall purchasing equipment.

[35:21] Maybe this was a year where you were going to do a bunch of computers or

[35:24] laptops. You say, "Okay, we're going to wait one more year in order to reduce

[35:26] that number." Um, sometimes it's equipment you're not buying. You get

[35:30] down in streets and maintenance and garage. Sometimes that's, you know, I

[35:34] could, it might be that we need a new scanner for vehicles, but we say, "Okay,

[35:38] we're going to push that a year and and take the risk on that." What I say is

[35:42] everything that you see in a cut, whether it's one of these examples or

[35:45] something else, cuts are always a risk assessment. So if you're willing to cut

[35:50] something or not pay for it, you're accepting the risk that thing may not

[35:53] fail for the next year. You're willing to go one more year with it. A perfect

[35:56] example is we've had trucks that are 20 years old that still happen to be

[36:00] driving and the board says it might be on its last leg, but the people driving

[36:05] that truck are not responding to emergencies. We're going to take the

[36:07] risk one more year on that truck. Sometimes it works. we happen to get one

[36:11] more year. Sometimes a truck blows up mid year and the board has to buy a

[36:14] truck anyway. But every cut is a risk assessment. And so this is just a sample

[36:18] of some of those cuts. $1.8 million worth, which is 19 cent on the tax rate.

[36:24] If you go back to the $99,000 per cent of tax. All right.

[36:31] And then if we look at water and sewer, these are funds that again are

[36:36] enterprise funds. The state requires us to run them like a business. So what you

[36:40] pay for your water is supposed to pay for the cost to provide the water. So if

[36:44] you look at this, your personnel and operations are much different because

[36:47] the business you're spending 50% in operations, 46% in water, and in sewer,

[36:53] 75% in operations, only 24% in personnel. Those capital outlay numbers

[36:58] are very, very small. That is because those retained earning accounts, as you

[37:01] saw a minute ago, are small. So the money that we're spending on capital has

[37:05] to be limited based on the resources that we have because capital outlay is

[37:08] things like buying a new piece of equipment, buying a huge truck, backho,

[37:13] something like that, a vac replacements of your capital projects

[37:18] like a massive sewer line project that might be in your capital improvement

[37:22] plan. All right, next slide. I don't actually know when to stop on Danny, so

[37:26] y'all got to tell me. Is this you now? Okay.

[37:36] Good evening. I'm up here alone, but I'm not afraid.

[37:43] That's my joke for the night. You're supposed to laugh. I'm glad you did.

[37:46] Anyway, okay. Proposed utility bill. The average low usage for the citizens is

[37:54] 3,000 gallons per month for a single family or or a couple. The average use

[38:01] is 5,000 and the high usage average is 9,000.

[38:06] And if you look at the chart, if you if you're 2,000

[38:09] gallons a month, you're going to pay $115

[38:13] 57. The proposed is for the coming year it'll be 137 but we use the 3,000

[38:21] because that is the low average of most houses in Havlock. Your average is going

[38:27] to be 129 for this year. Next year it'll be 154.

[38:34] And if you're the big average is 5,000 as you can see is 19056 because it goes

[38:40] by all of all of it goes off of your usage and now it'll be $22262.

[38:49] Solid waste that's contracted through GFL and they basically set our rates and

[38:54] I believe they're going up this year on contract. Am I right, Mr. Mayor?

[38:59] Okay. Storm water, everybody. Um, I did have

[39:04] one question about that earlier today. Storm water is something that we're

[39:08] mandated to do it as a city. Um, it doesn't mean we're just mandated to do

[39:13] it and we got to find some way to fund it. And the way we funded it, come up

[39:18] with is is $4 per h per household. So,

[39:26] I don't have to go next slide. Uh the current rate is for one eru which is

[39:30] basically the equivalent residential unit and for all houses in Havlock they

[39:36] use it's the same. It doesn't matter how big your house is or how little your

[39:39] house is you get charged one unit. Where the big difference comes in is the

[39:44] commercial rate is that for every 2500 square feet of a business they got to

[39:49] pay an eru. So it's $4 per 2500 square feet for a business. So you can imagine

[39:55] what Walmart's storm water bill is next slide.

[40:05] All right. Utility rates.

[40:09] Our system, as you can see on the slide, is 40 to 70 years old, depending on when

[40:15] your your housing community was built. There are a lot of different types of

[40:21] materials from 50 years ago, 60, 70 years ago than there are things that

[40:25] were built 20 years ago or 40 years ago. We have 80 miles of sewer main and all

[40:32] that is made of many different materials. Some cost more to repairs

[40:40] than others. And as the mayor was uh explaining what

[40:44] capital outlay means, you know, that is what we use for our funds that are the

[40:50] earned um I'm going to I'm going to mess this one

[40:54] up.

[40:59] Not capital A, but our our funds for that. I always forget the name of it.

[41:03] The earned income returned earnings. Retained earnings. So

[41:08] part of that comes from it's basically a savings account for your rainy days to

[41:12] put it in in small easy terms.

[41:18] Havlock's utility system is significant and aging as I as I said combined with a

[41:23] limited growth which is a big thing. We have Havlock has we're kind of

[41:27] landlocked. I know you're going to say how how are we landlocked? Well, we have

[41:31] the base and the Noose River basically. Then we are surrounded by national

[41:36] forest. So, it's hard for us to grow out any way left or right and and out to the

[41:42] west or south. So, what we got to do is try to grow

[41:49] within what we have. So, the combined limited growth and the cost of

[41:54] maintaining replacing the infrastructure has to be spread relatively small

[41:58] customer base. So, like everybody said, why is our tax rate so high compared to

[42:04] other just the rate and and and I know the mayor explained to you what the rate

[42:08] is. It's really matters what you what you pay. But let's just say that we have

[42:13] a water break or a water main break here in Havlock and they have the same water

[42:18] main break in Morhead. And listen, just for number sake, the

[42:24] repair costs $100. They have 20 people to pay for that. So

[42:28] it cost them each $5. We only have 10 people to pay for that. So it cost each

[42:33] of our 10 people $10. So but you're getting the same repair. You're getting

[42:38] the same material. You're getting the same work. So that's one easy way to

[42:42] look at it.

[42:52] » Solid waste. Um, as you said, the rates are going to go up for the the fees and

[42:56] the gas and all that. So, the rate we're going to adjust. We've been doing this

[43:01] for a little while, but our expenditures of this is only for 28% of the

[43:05] personnel. 58% is all operating costs and 14% of your capital outlay,

[43:12] basically your savings account. So, right now, you pay for the current

[43:16] resident $24.84. proposed is going to be less than a $2

[43:22] increase on your solid waste per month. And if you're a commercial, it's still a

[43:27] little bit over $2 as the rate goes for the upcoming budget.

[43:33] Your storm water, there's no changes to your revenue. As you can see that the

[43:37] expenditures for that is 41%. 23% for operating costs and 30 36% for

[43:45] your capital outlay because there's a lot of other equipment that goes along

[43:49] with making sure your runoff whether it's man-made or we make sure that what

[43:55] is man-made gets to the natural estuaries to push the water out to where

[43:59] it goes that we have to have a little bit more equipment to do that

[44:04] and there's no rate um increase for that this year. Next slide, please.

[44:12] As you saw in one of the other slides for the touring event center, we're

[44:17] going to go up about 10% on all of our rates.

[44:21] Um, this is one of those ones that the touring event center every year we have

[44:25] to add money to it to keep this beautiful facility open. And as you can

[44:30] see, the 50% of the expenditures are for personnel. We don't have really a whole

[44:35] lot of people that work here in the tourist event center in comparison to

[44:38] other place other places, but they do a phenomenal job and this place has kept

[44:43] up phenomenally. It it's it's amazing and it's clean. Every time you come here

[44:50] and every event they have here, it is done with the utmost professionalism

[44:53] that I've ever seen. So, and 46% is your operating cost and only 4% of your

[44:59] capital outlay. Because of all the other things we've done in years past to keep

[45:04] the improvements up on this building, they've done a ve we've done a very good

[45:07] job as a city keeping this building up to where it needs to be.

[45:11] Um, and again, the majority of expenditures is personnel and operating

[45:15] expenses. And with that, I'm going to turn it over

[45:20] to Commissioner Kanty for the next set of slides.

[45:33] Good evening. So the next couple slides I have uh understanding that a city

[45:39] cannot just run on the the taxes that we receive from the citizen alone. We also

[45:44] actually go out trying to obtain loans and grants and those will be my next

[45:50] couple of slides I'm going to cover. I'm going cover right now our debt uh our

[45:55] debt slides. Currently, we have six USDA loans and one state loan. As a

[46:02] municipality, we there are strict guidelines that we actually have to

[46:05] follow before we are even uh approved for these loans. We have to basically

[46:10] follow these guidelines to make sure that one one we can pay back pay back

[46:15] the loan that we receive. And

[46:19] for being good stewards of of the the taxpayers's money, we've obtained again

[46:25] like I said six USDA loan and one state loan and we've been responsible and

[46:30] paying all our uh all of our loans back in a timely manner. And over the last

[46:35] three years uh 2023 we We repaid a sewer annex loan, the water plant loan in

[46:42] 2024, and we also paid off our fire truck in 2025.

[46:48] So, we are being good steward of the taxpayers money when we do receive it.

[46:54] Like I said, these are some of the things that we hope to do go out and get

[47:00] to help ease the burden on the taxpayer because trying to buy a fire truck, I

[47:06] think one fire truck is almost like 1.2 million if I'm not mistaken. I can

[47:11] correct that number in at the end of this right here. Next slide.

[47:16] Uh current grants.

[47:22] There are also some things that we actually have to do to actually uh to go

[47:27] out and grab uh to apply for grants. Currently, we have over 17 million in

[47:33] grants right now. Uh there we're also pending a

[47:39] uh a Marta Canal grant that's going to be another $6

[47:44] million basically added to the city. Now, these grants, they can't be used to

[47:50] to to lower the tax, but they they are used to basically specific projects that

[47:54] are here in the city that we're trying to take care of. And also our parks and

[48:01] wreck, they just completed their parks and wreck uh master plan. That's going

[48:06] to allow us to apply for additional grants for the parks and wreck. So we're

[48:11] looking forward to that in the upcoming year now that our uh parks and rec

[48:15] master plan has been completed. But no, these grants pretty much allows the

[48:22] Havlock to address major infrastructure needs that basically help us with uh

[48:28] public safety, recreation, water, sewer, and storm water projects here in the

[48:32] city for these grants. So, if there's a grant out there for the city of Havlock,

[48:39] we're going to aggressively go after it and try to get it to help alleviate some

[48:43] of the burden on the citizen of Havlock. And just one clarifier, Tyrone, the the

[48:48] master rec plan is still in process. We have completed the contract, so it is

[48:52] let and the contractor is working it. Matter of fact, one of your first

[48:56] opportunities as citizens to give input into that will be Friday. They're doing

[48:59] it in conjunction with our concert Friday night. So, you'll have a few

[49:03] opportunities to give input to the master rec plan. Uh then it will be

[49:07] completed and adopted by the board and it can be used to get grants and things

[49:11] like that. >> Thank you very much for that, Mr. Mayor.

[49:14] Next slide, please. So we've seen these these sl these

[49:18] slides. This right here is what we are proposing right now. This is the again

[49:23] this is a proposal. Uh the budget right now is looking at to to be at a tax rate

[49:28] of 75 cents. That's 1 cents uh property tax uh equaling generating 99,380.

[49:38] Average home basically is 186 uh 186,300.

[49:45] Uh our vehicle tax 1 cent basically bring in 15,45

[49:50] with a total estimate tax value of 144 $114,993,0093

[49:58] uh fees per permit fees increase generally to 3.3%

[50:03] CPI basically following the guidelines and our enterp enterprise funds water

[50:10] increase 15% sewer increase 20% solid wast

[50:15] and no change to our storm water and then our tour and event center is 10%.

[50:21] Next slide which rounds everything out as our

[50:26] proposed budget and again our this is just the proposed budget. Our budget

[50:30] workshop meeting that's going to be take place on the 10th which is this coming

[50:34] Wednesday is also open to the public. You can get to come to see how we're

[50:39] tightening the screws now to basically come up with a final project for the

[50:43] city of Havlock to continue to be good stewardist of the taxpayers's uh

[50:48] finances. Uh 3 cents tax increase average home as a as again 186,300

[50:55] an additional 55 $5589 per year or 4 point $466

[51:04] per month.

[51:08] And I believe uh Commissioner Wilson will come up and cover our next couple

[51:14] of slides. Thank you.

[51:19] I'm the oldest, so I get to talk about history.

[51:24] How did that happen? But I've been on the board long enough to see all of

[51:28] those numbers. And you can see we went through seven years where we did not

[51:34] raise taxes. But in 2023, we had a listening session just like tonight

[51:40] where the citizens said, "We don't want this big increase. Can

[51:46] you do it a little bit at a time instead of one big Sometimes cutting

[51:55] just to cut is bad. Um but we tried for a long time to stay um balanced and and

[52:06] not increase but but you can see the world we live in today so much has

[52:13] increased. Inflation has hit us not only in gas has been talked about but buying

[52:19] the the product to take care of your water to take care of the sewer. All of

[52:26] those things, parks and wreck, we can't get along without new trucks, new police

[52:32] cars, new fire trucks, all of those things have to come as part of being a

[52:39] city. We have, like I said, we tried for seven years, we were able to not have a

[52:46] tax increase, but however, you've seen that we've had to go forward

[52:52] with that with that tax increase. Next slide.

[53:01] Our utility funds. This is the this is actually the one that scares me the

[53:05] most. If you look at 2026,

[53:12] we're we are at 2,6,000

[53:17] $600,000. we spent this year so far 2 million3.

[53:25] If we have a year like this year, we're going to be

[53:32] in trouble. Um I don't know any other way to say it,

[53:37] but the grand total of our funds keep going down. Um we we have explained

[53:46] again the costs going up with each and every year as to operating those systems

[53:54] and not having an increase of our tax budget like many other municipalities

[54:01] have because we haven't had the growth. We do have hopes and plans for

[54:08] additional growth down down Lake Road, additional growth out toward Stately

[54:14] Pines as as the I42 happens, but that's not going to bring a answer soon.

[54:23] So know that those things are are being talked. We're talking with developers,

[54:30] but it's not a quick fix. So, next is Tom Tant. And I was happy to see him

[54:38] tonight because he's going to give you Are you Did you want to Okay. So,

[54:43] anyway, Tom has has been our city engineer for a long long time. He's with

[54:50] Hazen and Sawyer. I don't I can't remember many projects that we have that

[54:55] he is influenced having some influence by. So, this is Tom Tant. So, y'all

[55:01] might be wondering why we had Tom come out today. A lot of the questions we've

[55:04] gotten about water and sewer in particular over the last several weeks

[55:08] have been regarding how do you decide what you're doing with your system? Like

[55:12] how are you planning for retained earnings? How are you planning your

[55:14] projects? Tom does not work for the city as an employee, as an engineer. We don't

[55:18] have that. Tom is a cont is on contract with us through Hazen and Sawyer and is

[55:23] very familiar with Havlock's been working on projects with us for a very

[55:26] long time. And the last couple years, the phrase that we've used a lot is

[55:32] called changing the trajectory, right? We all would love an easy button where

[55:34] you can just push it and say 70 years of sewer line just get repaired and we move

[55:40] on and you have a perfect system and you restart. It doesn't work that way. So

[55:43] when you find yourself in that situation, what do you do to try to

[55:47] solve the problem and how do you expend your funds efficiently in order to

[55:51] change that trajectory to get you moving in the right direction? So Tom and his

[55:55] team have been integral in trying to build that. So, he's going to run

[55:57] through a couple slides today to give you sort of what the board looks at when

[56:01] they start doing their risk calculations on how they decide their funding.

[56:04] » All right. Thank y'all. Uh, next slide. So, um, this slide really here is in

[56:11] intended to explain that we're trying to get in a proactive

[56:15] uh, stance on the utility side of things. Um, when you got water lines and

[56:21] sewer lines that fail, you're doing emergency repairs and you're doing them

[56:25] when you don't really want to be doing them. Things are expensive. That's that

[56:29] that's a pricey way to run a system. And so what we've been working on really

[56:33] since last year is to try to get um I mean this shows a fiveyear plan. This is

[56:38] not intended to go five years and stop. This is the first five years, but we're

[56:42] progressively going through a condition assessment trying to identify what the

[56:47] problems are and really be in a more proactive mode. Now the bad news is

[56:51] this. when you start looking for problems so that you can identify

[56:55] problems before they're real big, you're going to find them. All right? And

[56:59] there's a need to address them. But the deal is long term, if we address these

[57:03] in a proactive uh uh stance versus a reactive stance, at the end of the day,

[57:09] uh you got a lower cost. And so that's really what this sort of asset

[57:14] management trajectory is about. Um to try to be in a again more proactive

[57:18] stance and just a couple of I won't belver this

[57:24] but you know there's a plan for 2026 and so it does generate the needs uh for

[57:28] funds to stay on that program but that's what's needed to try to get ahead of the

[57:32] game. I would also point out that uh we've heard uh discussion about the the

[57:37] fund balances dropping you know and when you get these repairs that cost a ton of

[57:42] money that you didn't see coming it comes out of savings and that's really

[57:46] what some of those downward spikes are result of in the water and sewer side.

[57:51] All right, next slide. All right, so I'm going to change total gears here. I'm

[57:55] going to hop around a little bit, but that certainly is a big one, and that

[57:59] that's really geared towards what I just talked about out in the system. We have

[58:02] a wastewater plan. All right, next slide. Um, we did some work back in 2007

[58:08] that said, okay, what do we need from a wastewater capacity perspective? Uh, you

[58:12] know, and again, rock solid, but here's what's going on. Next slide. Um,

[58:19] this chart just all you got to care about is that in 2003 is the far left,

[58:26] 2026 is the far right. And it's going down to the right, right? And that

[58:33] downward trend, those are your wastewater flows. And so, as we've gone

[58:36] through time and added people and added businesses and everything else,

[58:41] actually, your wastewater flows are going down. and okay. Well, that's I

[58:46] mean that's a good thing. I mean we're managing the INI. That's a that's a

[58:49] great uh a great story and there have been some great projects that that

[58:53] caused that. The next slide is kind of interesting. So again, we're not going

[58:59] to belabor the the the technical points here, but that red line going up, that's

[59:04] basic basically the strength and the pollutant load within the waist stream.

[59:09] And so that stuff's harder to treat. So the story is back in 2007 when we said,

[59:14] "Okay, we got a plan for the wastewater plant and how we're going to deal with

[59:18] that." That was based on assumptions that we thought were going to play out

[59:22] in 07, you know, and things like this generate a greater need for wastewater

[59:27] treatment than than was assumed. And so there's a lot of things in play behind

[59:32] the scenes beyond just your typical uh inflationary kind of drivers that drive

[59:38] the cost of water and sewer. So that's these are you know just some factors

[59:42] that go into that. All right. Uh and then the last slide that I'll mention um

[59:48] that's why I mentioned it earlier. So and this is just an example you know uh

[59:54] over at the wastewater plant we've been talking about trying to get some

[59:57] improved controls and basically computer controlled uh type of equipment at the

[1:00:02] plant because you know that that you know those types of things solve a lot

[1:00:06] of problems or can help prevent a lot of problems and things that um you know uh

[1:00:11] can if you're not careful can create um you know a lot of expense on the city if

[1:00:16] things aren't caught in a timely fashion. So stuff like this is just

[1:00:19] another part of the philosophy that's going in to the planning for these

[1:00:23] facilities is trying to stay ahead of that head of the curve. So with that I

[1:00:28] think that's the last slide I've got.

[1:00:38] I actually asked for this part because in 2013 when I became a new

[1:00:43] commissioner, I took a tour of our water I mean of our

[1:00:49] our sewer plant and in our sewer plant there is a 1950

[1:00:56] something megathon box taking up room. We have tried to improve our system as

[1:01:04] we can but as Tom mentioned GA would do wonderful for our city. We've able we've

[1:01:11] been able to get it for our for our water department, but we have not been

[1:01:15] able to get it for our wastewater. So, I asked for sewer because I I am a widow.

[1:01:23] I live alone. I know what it cost y'all to have your sewer treatment. But, but

[1:01:32] Havlock is doing everything we can with the money that we currently are getting.

[1:01:39] And you can see by the previous slide that I had that um if we have repairs

[1:01:46] like we did this year, the retained earnings that we currently have will be

[1:01:51] much lower next year. So now I'm supposed to talk about

[1:01:56] personnel. So I'm off sewer. And now to our wonderful people because we do have

[1:02:02] a great staff that do so much for us and as you can see we are in competition

[1:02:10] with all of our neighboring communities. Um if they raise salaries and and we

[1:02:17] don't and currently all we're raising is cola and longevity.

[1:02:22] uh cola just as the mayor said if they buy buy a loaf of bread this year cola

[1:02:29] covers it to that it's the same loaf of bread so that they're paying the same

[1:02:34] amount of their salary towards the the loaf of bread next year. So we're just

[1:02:41] keeping pace with inflation and the board had made a choice of of dates

[1:02:49] because originally when when I was on the board. We started with whatever cola

[1:02:55] was in January. Well, it wasn't always the same as it got to be March and April

[1:03:00] when we're actually doing the budget. So, we are getting a later COLA date now

[1:03:05] than we did originally. Our I wanted to read this. This is our

[1:03:12] actual city policy. The city's colon longevity amounts are based on the board

[1:03:18] of commissioners adopted compensation philosophy policy which is intended to

[1:03:23] recruit, retain, motivate our employees. In addition, it is to pay all categories

[1:03:31] of employees at a competitive market area level. A cost of living adjustment,

[1:03:37] COLA, is a pay adjustment designed to help our employees keep up with

[1:03:42] inflation and rising living expenses. A COLA is not intended to be a pay raise.

[1:03:49] Rather, it's an adjustment designed to help our employees keep pace with

[1:03:53] inflation and rising living cost. Without cola, an employee purchasing

[1:04:00] power an employees purchasing power decreases

[1:04:04] over time as everyday expenses such as housing, groceries, fuel, and utilities

[1:04:10] become more expensive. So that is our board's philosophy.

[1:04:16] And I think any of you who are out there in the workforce, you you

[1:04:22] feel the same way when it comes to cola. You don't want to lose what standard

[1:04:27] you're currently at. And with that, I thank everybody for being here tonight,

[1:04:32] and I'm turning it back over to the mayor.

[1:04:38] So, one thing I'm going to add to that slide is the 1.7 for longevity. Probably

[1:04:44] you might be wondering, how do we get to that percentage?

[1:04:47] 1.7 longevity is based on um a a lifetime retirement track at the city of

[1:04:54] Havlock. So if you come to work for us as a brand new police officer and you

[1:04:59] get paid your basic salary, if you stay for 20 to 25 years and you get 1.7 every

[1:05:05] single year when you retire in that pay grade, you will have moved from the

[1:05:08] bottom of the pay grade to the top. That's where the that's just math to get

[1:05:12] 1.7%. The board can do whatever percentage they want every year. But

[1:05:16] they call it longevity because it's a an amount of money that goes to that

[1:05:22] employee who stays here for their career. So, it's about your longevity

[1:05:25] that here in the city of Havlock. All right. I'm going to run through a couple

[1:05:28] of next steps real quick and then y'all can um we'll we'll talk about whatever

[1:05:33] you want. So, we do have a workshop Wednesday. We talked about that at the

[1:05:36] beginning. You are always welcome at any meeting that the board of commissioners

[1:05:40] has. Period. Every meeting is an open meeting. A workshop is not one that has

[1:05:44] a public hearing section or a public comments or any of that. That's

[1:05:47] typically where the sausage is made. That's where the board will sit down and

[1:05:50] talk about all the input they get from you and decide what they want to do

[1:05:54] about this topic or any other topic. Uh budget adoption will be June 22nd. We

[1:05:59] already had our public hearing on the budget last Monday. So if you come on

[1:06:03] the 22nd, you want to talk about the budget, there is a public comment

[1:06:06] section at the beginning. You could talk about whatever you would like and that

[1:06:09] would include the budget. If you had more input on the budget, they bless

[1:06:13] you. They would adopt that on June 22nd. The budget would become effective July

[1:06:18] 1. How can you get a hold of us otherwise? I think that's what our next

[1:06:22] slide is, Chad, which is you can check our website and if you

[1:06:28] want to look at past budgets, they're on the website and we gave you some

[1:06:31] highlights of past budgets, but they're on our website or you can come in and

[1:06:34] get it from us anytime you want. We're on social media. Also, our meetings are

[1:06:39] at 7 o'clock. Um, unless it's something special like this where we move it back

[1:06:44] a little bit to accommodate people's schedules. workshops are the second

[1:06:48] Monday, regular televised are the fourth and the regular televised are where we

[1:06:52] have the public comment section where you can come up and speak about anything

[1:06:55] for five minutes to the board. Um, and again, all of our meetings are open. I

[1:06:59] do have specific office hours set aside Mondays 3 to 5 for any citizens. It's

[1:07:03] pretty heavily used. I always ask people to call ahead if you want to come in

[1:07:06] just to make sure that there's time in that 3 to five block. But I'll also meet

[1:07:10] with citizens as a lot of you in this room know any other time if it's a

[1:07:15] Tuesday because you work Mondays or you need to meet at 5:30 whatever I I meet

[1:07:19] people at Bojangles whatever you need to do um because we want to get you

[1:07:23] whatever information you need. Um and then I think that's kind of it right

[1:07:28] Chad that's our last slide and then we'll back up to whatever ones we need u

[1:07:32] to go over whatever questions you have. So here's how we'll do it. We do it just

[1:07:35] like if you've been to a board meeting, we do it the same way. We're going to

[1:07:38] have you come up to the microphone for a couple reasons. One, so everybody here

[1:07:41] can hear you. Two, because we are Facebook liveing this whole thing. I

[1:07:46] don't know if I just made that term up. We're on Facebook Live, whatever we're

[1:07:49] doing. And we're hooked into the microphone system. So, if you're

[1:07:53] speaking in the mic, then people at home that might be watching this will hear

[1:07:56] your question. Um, and then if you come up, state your name and address clearly

[1:08:00] in the mic, just like we do at a board meeting. So, we have it for the minutes

[1:08:03] because we are officially in a board meeting. And then if um and then I'll be

[1:08:08] happy to answer whatever questions you've got or we'll let the

[1:08:11] commissioners answer it if it was one of their slides and they'd like to answer

[1:08:14] it and we can we can um go back and forth. I'll go ahead and start with this

[1:08:18] reminder. Everybody up here pays the exact same bills that you do. We are not

[1:08:23] tax exempt. We do not not pay utilities. We pay all the exact same bills. We're

[1:08:27] all required to live in city limits. That's the law. only three requirements

[1:08:30] to be a commissioner or a mayor. You have to be 21. To live in the city

[1:08:34] limits, you have to be registered to vote in the district you want to run in.

[1:08:36] That is true for all of us. We pay the same bills that we ask our citizens to

[1:08:42] pay. Two, you saw a little bit of what Tom mentioned today and you saw some

[1:08:47] graphs and you were like, "What the crap am I looking at?" I get it because

[1:08:50] that's all a little bit foreign to you guys. That is the type of information

[1:08:54] that the board is dissecting and working through all the time for every decision

[1:08:57] that they make. Nobody here is lying to you about numbers. Um, I do get

[1:09:03] frustrated when people accuse us of that. None of us get paid to do this

[1:09:06] job. We get a very minimal, doesn't even cover our time stipened to be your

[1:09:11] elected official. There's no benefit for me to lie to you about how much money is

[1:09:14] in the general fund. There's no benefit for us to say, you know, would we ghoul

[1:09:18] today just raise everyone's taxes and see if it makes them happy or not. So, I

[1:09:22] just want to get out of the way that nobody on this board wakes up in the

[1:09:25] morning to try to find ways to piss off the community. Everyone's trying to do

[1:09:28] the right thing for the community. So, and everything does have a thought

[1:09:32] process behind it. Is the thought process right? We like to think so, but

[1:09:36] it doesn't mean we don't want your input to think about it from a different

[1:09:39] perspective. So, with that being said, anybody who'd like to speak, please feel

[1:09:43] free to come up to the microphone and ask your question or concern and we'll

[1:09:47] work through it the best we can. Who would like to go first?

[1:09:53] Come on up. Yes, sir.

[1:09:59] Howard Hoffman. I live on Bobcat Circle and my question is uh what is the money

[1:10:05] that's used for the water runoff for? What does it do? Because in my home uh

[1:10:11] my water run my the water that comes from the rain runs to the back of my

[1:10:16] property. I followed it one night goes to a ditch which leads to the Sloum

[1:10:21] Creek. So where where's my incentive going? What's it paying for?

[1:10:28] » Sure can answer that. Um the $4 storm water fees, what what you're referring

[1:10:33] to and what does that go to? So the money for us for storm water goes

[1:10:37] directly into an account that gets utilized by our public works team to do

[1:10:42] storm water work and we have a storm water director and it's used across the

[1:10:46] entire city. So some of that money is used for specific large projects like

[1:10:51] maybe cleaning out an entire set of ditches in a neighborhood. Some of it

[1:10:55] goes to general maintenance. So part of your question that I'm going to

[1:10:59] add to that is what's different than it used to be. So used to we did that with

[1:11:02] tax dollars when we created the fee. That money is dedicated to that effort

[1:11:06] alone and it allows us to be much more efficient about utilizing that money. So

[1:11:11] you know you have a set amount of money that comes in every year for that $4

[1:11:14] dollar from every house. And then when our team goes out and they start

[1:11:18] analyzing the ditches and doing the storm water, it's a much more surgical

[1:11:22] approach to getting that done. So, I don't know about your particular ditch

[1:11:26] in Bobcat, but I will say there are lots of ditches in the city of Havlock that

[1:11:30] were ones the city probably should have been cleaning that we were not because

[1:11:34] we didn't have the funds or the plan to do so that we are now cleaning. And I

[1:11:38] would say yours, if we had a specific question, we can just get Patrick to

[1:11:40] look at the map and figure out if that's your ditch, our ditch, and who's

[1:11:43] supposed to be cleaning it. But it also allowed us to jumpst start cleaning in

[1:11:48] some ditches that probably were citizen required ditches, but they were not

[1:11:52] doing it. and they got so far out of hand that there's no way you could have

[1:11:55] done it as a citizen. We were able to take some of that money, go in and get

[1:11:58] it to the point where you can clean it now as a citizen so you can keep up with

[1:12:01] your own ditch. So that's kind of like the 10,000 foot. That's kind of what we

[1:12:04] that's what we do with the money. It all goes towards that storm water work

[1:12:08] across the entire city. So even if your own house you don't see it, it's

[1:12:11] happening in a further drainage situation down from your house or

[1:12:15] somewhere in your neighborhood. >> Yes, ma'am.

[1:12:24] We have to have a stormwater plan, right? They don't mandate that we have

[1:12:28] to charge for the plan, but you have to have a plan. And if the plan doesn't

[1:12:33] meet certain criteria, they can come in and force you to charge people money. We

[1:12:36] decided to be proactive. And that's because we're one of the 20 kma

[1:12:40] counties, which there are 20 waterfront counties. We are one of them. So, we

[1:12:43] have to follow those rules.

[1:12:53] at the Amos 214 Grove Lane. Um, Lake Road is um been developed with the

[1:13:00] bypass. Um, does the city of Havlock control Lake Grove before it turns into

[1:13:05] NA? And I asked because sometimes there's potholes right there or the

[1:13:09] grass isn't cut along the sides. Um, with the development of the bypasses, a

[1:13:14] lot of traffic coming down there now. Um, I noticed that we have more police

[1:13:18] presence to try to slow the traffic down when they make that left turn off of the

[1:13:23] bypass. Um, so I wondered who is responsible for the maintaining of that

[1:13:28] road from Lake Road to Nmau for the grass and for the potholes.

[1:13:32] » Okay. So, first of all, thank you for noticing that we've increased the police

[1:13:36] presence out there since the bypass open because our team has been doing that

[1:13:39] aggressively. If I'm not mistaken, Patrick, all of Lake Road is DOT. So all

[1:13:43] of Lake Road from Miller to the bypass is owned by the North Carolina

[1:13:46] Department of Transportation. So if we have potholes in there now that we know

[1:13:50] about, we do forward those along and ask them to make the repairs and that's

[1:13:53] their that would be their rideway that they would be managing. Correct,

[1:13:56] Patrick? There is a project coming. I don't know the extent of it, but after

[1:14:01] the bypass is fully complete, they are going to do some work up and down Lake

[1:14:05] Road. there's going to be some changing of the road and widening to make it a

[1:14:08] little bit safer along with those u with some of the rideway changes. And I I

[1:14:13] think you brought up a good point too. So when we say roads are not ours or

[1:14:16] they are ours or whatever, it does matter like who's paying for the

[1:14:20] road. So in this case, I think your example is perfect. It's DOT's job to

[1:14:25] pay for maintenance, but our police department is still who's enforcing the

[1:14:28] laws on the road.

[1:14:38] My name is Mary McCarthy. I live at 140 South Forest. Um, as you know, it

[1:14:43] flooded there really bad during Florence and there's a ditch

[1:14:50] claw or something that goes in the center of the road. There are cattails

[1:14:56] and weeds taller than I am growing in there. And it seems to me I mean they

[1:15:02] had to my street. Maybe they should consider

[1:15:08] doing something about that ditch. Um, and the second question, the bypass, you

[1:15:15] know, I live at the very back and there's woods, but you can still hear

[1:15:20] the loud. Are they going to put any sound

[1:15:24] barriers up? >> I mean, I'm used to the airplanes. I'm

[1:15:30] used to the railroad, but I'm not traffic 247.

[1:15:36] So I didn't know if that was gonna as where I live, you can see the headlights

[1:15:41] of cars getting on the eastern side of getting off.

[1:15:48] » Sure. No, ma'am. I do not believe DOT has any plans for sound barriers.

[1:15:52] » I'm pretty I'm 99% sure they have none. >> I know the original project did not. Um,

[1:15:58] and then to your your first question, and Patrick will straighten me out if I

[1:16:03] get this wrong. We did go in and do a massive clean out of that major ditch

[1:16:08] that goes through the middle of South Forest.

[1:16:09] » Yes. >> After the storm. So,

[1:16:18] » Yes, ma'am. And so when we cleared that out, I'm pretty sure some of those

[1:16:22] ditches are ones that are really supposed to be the owner maintaining

[1:16:26] them, not us. And some of that is about whether or not we have easement or

[1:16:29] rideway on the original deed. And so we did the initial cleaning and I think

[1:16:33] they're supposed to be mowing down to the bottom of the ditch and some do and

[1:16:35] some don't. Is that correct, Patrick?

[1:16:45] » Yeah. So

[1:16:54] So they do they they do go through once a year. Patrick, you want to add it?

[1:16:57] You're good. So they do go through once a year in South Force and do the ditches

[1:17:00] that we have control over to try to keep them down.

[1:17:05] » Yes, ma'am.

[1:17:18] Yeah. Only the five or six of you on the hill back there didn't flow.

[1:17:21] » Yes, ma'am.

[1:17:25] » Yes, ma'am.

[1:17:29] » Hi. My name is Steve Loyel. I live at 907 Trail, Wolf Creek. And I got a

[1:17:34] question just out of curiosity. They laid new black top roads uh going into

[1:17:38] Wolf Creek, but they only did half of it. And was there a reason? I mean, it

[1:17:42] looked really nice, but they didn't Culac I think the one next to us they

[1:17:47] did uh the two culde-sacs coming into Wolf Creek but I was just wondering

[1:17:51] basically they did 50% of the job just was wondering why they didn't finish it.

[1:17:56] » Yes sir. So u I we can look at a spreadsheet to get the exact answer but

[1:18:00] I can give you the general answer. So we are very surgical about how we pave. So

[1:18:05] what we do is we have a spreadsheet and it's got all the streets that we have

[1:18:09] responsibility for and then Patrick's team, we hire a contractor to do a

[1:18:13] payment survey and then our team goes out and verifies that. So if they tell

[1:18:19] us we grade A, B, C, D, E, F, whatever. Then what we do is we pave based on that

[1:18:25] and then he takes the percentages. I believe we use 6040 right now. 60%

[1:18:29] towards repair, 40% at full depth. So, there are times where we get halfway

[1:18:33] down a road and that was a a D road and then it turns to a B- road and we stop

[1:18:39] paving and then we move to somewhere else that is a D or an F.

[1:18:42] » On a B road, >> you might be on a B- road and and so

[1:18:46] what I would say is we could actually tell you we have a spreadsheet and um

[1:18:50] I'd be happy to me or Patrick would sit down with a spreadsheet with you and we

[1:18:53] can look at your road and say you are graded currently at a B minus or a B+

[1:18:57] and then that would be why we would stop. For example, Forest Steel Drive,

[1:19:01] they did the first 200 feet three years ago, and that's where we stopped. And

[1:19:04] the other part didn't get done for three years because it was still high enough

[1:19:07] grade. >> So, I bought a house that is rated F.

[1:19:12] » Okay. So, we're we're getting we are this. So, just to go back to Powell for

[1:19:19] one second since we're talking about it, when you saw that Powell fund, it goes

[1:19:22] like this. It does that because we do our paving every two years. So, we

[1:19:28] learned after Florence because we had to skip a year. We learned that if you

[1:19:32] spend a million or more, you get way more bang for your buck than if you

[1:19:35] spend 500,000 a year on paving. We thought we were doing the right thing,

[1:19:38] spending 500,000 a year on paving. But when a company comes in to mobilize,

[1:19:42] 500,000 goes this far, but a million takes you like three times further, not

[1:19:46] just twice as far. So, we have switched our policy to paving every two years.

[1:19:51] Like this year we're spending 1 point is it two

[1:19:57] almost 1.4 if you count utility cuts 1.18 or something on just streets. So

[1:20:04] we're spending a a dramatic amount of money on paving and you'll see a lot of

[1:20:07] progress happen. We won't pave anything except repairs for the next two years.

[1:20:11] Then we go back out with another million dollar contract.

[1:20:16] » All right. Who else?

[1:20:29] I think the slide nir.

[1:20:41] » Yes. >> I know we all know name and address

[1:20:45] under the mediumsiz American flag. I remember but go ahead. Uh Troy Ellis on

[1:20:49] Nottingham Drive. >> Thank you, Troy.

[1:20:52] » But for the the three or I guess four columns with the three numbers, um the

[1:20:57] actual I guess is what you guys actually have. We go to the bank. That's what the

[1:21:01] teller will tell you that we have. Uh the budget is

[1:21:07] the proposed I'm guessing a little gunged up on what those are.

[1:21:12] Uh so actual for 2425 that's what the bank would tell you you actually spent

[1:21:17] out of your account. So that is the legit audited completely finalized 2425.

[1:21:23] So we finish our budget um the next month we go into audit and by the end of

[1:21:27] September October we've got an audit. That's when we call it complete.

[1:21:30] » So this would be like if your accountant did your books for 2425 and said that's

[1:21:34] what you spent. The middle one is what we think we're going to spend by the end

[1:21:38] of this month. And that's pretty accurate. What would change? Uh god, I

[1:21:43] shouldn't even say it out loud, but let's say a water man, he not too. Let's

[1:21:48] say a water man broke right now while we were in here. So that water line that

[1:21:51] that water fund number instead of 4.4 might become 5.1, right? Because we

[1:21:57] don't know what's going to happen in the next three weeks. So that is what we're

[1:22:00] pretty sure this year's budget, that's what we budgeted and that's what it

[1:22:04] should come out as. And then the last one is what we're expecting next year's

[1:22:08] budget to be. Did that clear it up, >> Troy?

[1:22:17] Maybe one day give me a tour of the treatment plans to see what they look

[1:22:22] like. But um I guess whatever percentage we raise it at. I told it to Mr.

[1:22:28] Commissioner, whatever you raise it at. I guess I'll ask that if if it's 20% or

[1:22:34] 15% attempt whatever in the world it is if we could have that if it's the 20%

[1:22:40] it's a nice round number if that could all go into repairing um the super

[1:22:45] system um not that the the ladies and gentlemen that work for that division

[1:22:51] don't need a but we can just shove that straight into fixing the pump houses the

[1:22:56] um uh the main system lines and the system. I think that would be nice. And

[1:23:03] I guess since we're proposing somewhere around the8 million, is there

[1:23:09] a which is there like a spreadsheet of what neighborhoods we're looking at

[1:23:13] getting either repaired or remodeled or pump houses that are getting fixed up

[1:23:19] » for the sewer fund in particular? >> Yes.

[1:23:22] » Um not exactly. I would say that um we would be able to provide what do it a

[1:23:30] couple ways. We have like an M&R line, which is what we expect to pay in

[1:23:33] maintenance and repairs. >> Some of that is we don't know what's

[1:23:36] going to break, right? And so, we're just prepared to fix things that are

[1:23:39] going to break that are unknown. But Patrick typically does have a

[1:23:43] spreadsheet of things that we know we're preparing to do, maybe an upgrade at the

[1:23:46] water plant or something like that or maybe some lines that we know are going

[1:23:49] to get replaced. So, it' be a mix of the two, but yes, we could get you that

[1:23:53] depth of information out of the budget if you would like it. Yes, sir.

[1:23:56] » Okay. I guess I'll finish up with this question

[1:24:05] » I got to talk about the front door and I guess aside for our sewer lines

[1:24:11] themselves they're getting old I guess our wea or overhauled our water

[1:24:19] 13 years ago 14 years ago but I guess we weren't able to raise up the funs for

[1:24:24] the actual waste treatment

[1:24:28] because I know I guess we're trying to beat them both to the grounds.

[1:24:33] Is there any looking that's down the line?

[1:24:39] If that fails, it doesn't matter if we can't manage it.

[1:24:46] » Yes. And I would guess there's a couple things you're talking to specifically.

[1:24:49] Pricada. Is that what you're say, Brenda?

[1:24:58] instead of just

[1:25:02] so many different lines as he said 20 ft deep.

[1:25:09] Whenever we do a repair, we do it manhole to manhole.

[1:25:14] At least we're making headway with with getting our city

[1:25:22] I hate to say fixed, but but we're trying to get it fixed.

[1:25:29] » So, the the the one thing that's happened at the water plant that we've

[1:25:32] been able unable to do at the sewer plant aggressively is the SCADA system.

[1:25:36] And y'all heard that phrase get dropped earlier. SCADA is I don't know remember

[1:25:40] what STA SCADA stands for. What's that? System control and data acquisition.

[1:25:46] It's when computers run your stuff. And so that's how I say it. So at the water

[1:25:50] plant, for example, we have a computer system that's monitoring every valve and

[1:25:55] and the system as a whole. So, if our folks are sitting at home that work for

[1:26:00] the water plant on duty at one o'clock in the morning and a water line blows

[1:26:03] out, this has literally happened on Nun Street and the road's starting to float

[1:26:07] away because you've got a water man flowing. They can pull their iPad out,

[1:26:11] hit a button on the iPad and shut that water off from the plant so that we

[1:26:15] don't blow the road out. It also is giving them real world data, real time

[1:26:19] data all the time about the plant. So, they can see that data. They can operate

[1:26:23] the plant much more efficiently. You can have things turning on and off by plan.

[1:26:28] Our sewer plant has very, very little of that. Our sewer plant is still employees

[1:26:33] dropping into holes and manually turning valves or manually opening gates. Um,

[1:26:39] things like that. We do have a plan for that. It's about funding. Um, we've also

[1:26:45] we have done some major uh plant improvements. Chad, fast forward to I'm

[1:26:50] gonna say slide 19ish, 18 something like that. Keep going. Keep on going. Two,

[1:26:56] three more. Keep going. Keep going. I was way off.

[1:27:00] Keep going. Keep going. There. Okay. So, if you look at these numbers, some

[1:27:07] of these numbers of capital outlay were at our actual sewer plant particularly,

[1:27:11] and I I've got the sheet back there. I can pull it out, but uh 23 24 we did

[1:27:16] some major repairs on the influent pumps and things like that in the plant to

[1:27:20] modernize them. Um, so we are doing that as we go. But to your point, our plant

[1:27:26] only has so much capacity before we get to a point where we've got to do a major

[1:27:30] upgrade of the plant and that's going to be very expensive.

[1:27:34] » Did I get that? Okay, Tom. Okay.

[1:27:40] » Thank you, Troy.

[1:27:44] Who else?

[1:27:48] Yes, ma'am. Carla Liner, 203 Cambridge Court in

[1:27:54] Westbrook. When we bought our house, 1985,

[1:27:59] we were not in the city limits. We were in the county. We didn't want to live in

[1:28:03] the city. We were forcibly annexed. I wish you'd never annexed us. Um, this

[1:28:11] is all great. Nobody's talking about 60% of the budget is personnel.

[1:28:19] You're giving them 3.3 plus 1.7 in North Carolina math. That's 5%. Who the hell

[1:28:26] else is getting a 5% increase? And I understand the 1.7. Yeah, that's

[1:28:33] great. Give it to them every year. They're supposed to be working. I'll go

[1:28:38] to the police department because that was my field. You start out as a

[1:28:42] patrolman. You want to be a corporal. Then you want to be a sergeant. you're

[1:28:46] getting pay increases as you get promoted. You're not going to be the

[1:28:51] same thing the whole time. So, I think we need to to cut some fat

[1:28:57] in the personnel and that will save the rest of us. Thank you.

[1:29:02] » Okay. So, a couple things. One, I would say the only place personnel is at 60%

[1:29:07] is in the general fund itself. Nowhere else, which is only one small portion.

[1:29:11] and our total personnel in the city is of the budget is not 60%. Only in

[1:29:15] general fund two that 1.7 if you're not getting promoted that argument only

[1:29:21] works if you have promotional slots. So every department we have is very small

[1:29:26] and they look like this. So you have a department head. Most departments don't

[1:29:31] have an assistant. Most of the time we don't have multiple leadership positions

[1:29:35] underneath. So, it is normal for a patrolman or patrol woman, no matter how

[1:29:41] old or young they are when they come to us, to not get out of being a patrol

[1:29:45] officer by the time they retire because we only have four sergeant slots plus an

[1:29:50] investigator sergeant, that's five. Then you have two captains and one deputy

[1:29:55] chief. And you have 29 people in that department. Third way count

[1:30:00] telecommunicators over 30. So to say you mean you got seven slots for 26 people

[1:30:05] to move into um everybody's not moving up through the department. So the 1.7

[1:30:10] make sure they're getting paid every year. I would also add that in the city

[1:30:15] of Havlock if you were to nobody wants to talk about this but if you compare

[1:30:19] what all of our employees get paid and compare it to Morehead and compare to

[1:30:23] Newburn and compare it to Carter County and Craven County and everybody else

[1:30:27] around us we are the lowest. Period. Period. What does a police officer get

[1:30:32] paid right now? If we hire a brand new police officer, 45 46 brand new officer

[1:30:39] $47,000 to be a brand new police officer right now. What do they get paid in

[1:30:43] Morehead? 57. So if you want to work in Havlock,

[1:30:47] you're already getting paid 10,000 less than if you want to go work in Morhead,

[1:30:51] which by the way is only a 15 minute drive. And then to say they don't rate a

[1:30:56] 1.7% increase to keep them moving along their pay scale. I don't think that's a

[1:31:00] fair conversation. And by the way, if we look at this, um, everybody is doing at

[1:31:06] least the percentage we're talking about. And that is North Carolina math

[1:31:09] in every municipality and county around us. And some of them do it different. We

[1:31:14] do longevity because our board has not had an appetite for merit for years,

[1:31:19] right? Merit's difficult. It's a challenging thing. Other municipalities

[1:31:23] do merit and they get paid a higher percentage on the back side than the

[1:31:26] front side. Some of them do it in one-time sums. The board could change

[1:31:30] that, but if your employees don't get 1.7% for

[1:31:36] their longevity every year, that is a raise. That is a raise. The 3.3 is a

[1:31:41] cola. I understand, we all can agree it means the check looks bigger. But I

[1:31:46] think we all understand inflation. If you didn't understand inflation before

[1:31:49] 2026, I bet you get it now. Right? So, if you understand inflation, you know

[1:31:55] what they got paid a year ago is not buying the same amount of bread that it

[1:31:58] bought today. The 3.3 says your $150 you got in your check is now still $150 even

[1:32:04] though it looks like $160. That's inflation, right? That's all the 3.3 is.

[1:32:09] The 1.7 is an actual raise. That is true. 1.7% of their total salary goes to

[1:32:14] a raise in order to keep them moving through their path. The board does not

[1:32:17] have to do that. That is absolutely correct. They don't have to do that.

[1:32:21] But it is and and you could say because I've had this argument given to me a

[1:32:24] hundred times. I don't get that in my house. Well, you don't work for me. You

[1:32:29] don't work for them. I don't know what Walmart's paying their people. I don't

[1:32:32] know what you're getting on your retirement. I mean, we can look it up

[1:32:34] and see what Social Security is going to do and what your federal government

[1:32:37] retirement is going to do, and it's going to be 2% or 2.8 or 1.3 or whatever

[1:32:41] it is every year, but it is their responsibility to take care of their 140

[1:32:45] employees. And I don't think it's unreasonable at all to say 1.7%

[1:32:51] which equates to about $150,000 in your general fund to cover that. I don't

[1:32:57] think that's unreasonable at all. And I think if you want to cut a budget,

[1:33:01] cutting it on the backs of your employees is not the way to make sure

[1:33:04] that you have a healthy city in the city of Havlock. You want to retain good

[1:33:08] people. You want them to be able to do their job and love doing their job. You

[1:33:12] want to have I mean, look at the employees that are here today. There's I

[1:33:15] don't know if there's anybody here that's been here less than 15 years in

[1:33:19] the room except for one. I mean, people come here and they stay because they

[1:33:22] love the city of Havlock because we try to do the best we can to treat them

[1:33:24] right. And saying we're not going to give you an increase year-over-year to

[1:33:29] make sure you can still buy the same amount of bread is not telling your

[1:33:32] employees you want them to stay. I mean, that's a culture thing.

[1:33:36] I could preach on and on about that. Some of y'all heard me preach about it

[1:33:39] plenty. But I think if there's one thing, if you want to cut something, we

[1:33:42] can find plenty of things to cut for 150. that would be an impact on

[1:33:44] everybody in this room that will be shortterm compared to long term. And I

[1:33:49] think in cutting your employees is long term.

[1:33:54] And I would one more point I'll add. You have 140 employees for a city our size.

[1:34:00] Everywhere else in North Carolina they're averaging well over 160 to 180.

[1:34:03] We are incredibly lean in employees. The city of of Jacksonville has city of

[1:34:11] Newburn has more police officers than we have employees and they're only a 10 to

[1:34:16] 12,000 population more than us. You have 26 sworn officers. They have 130 sworn

[1:34:22] officers.

[1:34:25] All right. What else y'all want to talk about?

[1:34:38] Jim Schmidt, 437 Fox Hunt Lane. Back to the grant thing that we talked about

[1:34:42] earlier. Have those grants been have we received those grants or they've been

[1:34:46] applied for? So, that's received or being executed on. So, hit that one for

[1:34:51] me, Chad. So, um, this number for the last three years has consistently been

[1:34:56] over $20 million in grants. And so, we get a lot of comments from the public

[1:35:00] about get some grants that'll reduce our costs. Well, we're executing that. 17

[1:35:04] billion is what we are executing on today and we will execute on this year.

[1:35:08] We that's not applied for that is received.

[1:35:10] » And and so here's the way grants work. Let's say that uh Phoenix Park million

[1:35:16] dollars we've been told we'll get the funding.

[1:35:20] We do the process. We do the work. Then they give us the money back. So part of

[1:35:23] the reason you got to have money in your general fund to retain earnings is we

[1:35:26] have to front. We're going to front $17 million and then they'll pay us back in

[1:35:30] incremental pieces as we finish the project. So, these are all ones we're

[1:35:35] expecting. That six million we're approved for. We're just waiting on HUD

[1:35:39] to send us the that the bottom where it says currently waiting on paperwork for

[1:35:42] an additional six. That's another Mac Canal project. That's $6 million. Um, we

[1:35:48] have been approved. It's in the federal budget. So, we know we're getting it.

[1:35:52] We're just waiting on HUD to send us the appropriate paperwork to fill out to

[1:35:54] start the process. >> Okay. One more question. AMI metering,

[1:35:57] is that complete for the city? >> Yes, sir. AMI is complete. Matter of

[1:36:00] fact, on that um slide we had that had the two 22 and 23, if you'll go to that

[1:36:06] slide real quick, 23. One more. One more. So that 22 23 part of those

[1:36:12] numbers were your AMI metering. It's complete. And so if anybody if if you

[1:36:17] want to know if your usage is right, I'll tell every we've done this with a

[1:36:20] lot of citizens. we can sit down and show you your usage day by day, hour by

[1:36:24] hour, week by week, and you can actually see where you're using your water, when

[1:36:27] you're using your water, and if there are ways for you to conserve.

[1:36:30] » Okay, great. Thank you.

[1:36:35] » Speaking of which, I'll I'll just throw this out while you're thinking about if

[1:36:38] you have any more questions. on our website. Still, we have a a usage

[1:36:43] calculator that we built after the listening session last year because one

[1:36:46] of the questions was if I want to reduce my usage and get that to the point where

[1:36:51] I could reduce my water and sewer part of my bill, what does that look like? We

[1:36:54] built a calculator on our website that if you go onto it and you type in take

[1:36:59] your bill and type in how many gallons you use, it'll give you your

[1:37:01] calculation. If you say if I conserve 500 gallons, how does that change my

[1:37:05] bill? you change that number, it'll tell you what your water and sewer would be

[1:37:08] in that scenario. Or I've told citizens on the Converse, if

[1:37:13] you got a bunch of family coming in because it's graduation for your kids,

[1:37:16] you know, you're going to have eight more people, okay, if I go up a thousand

[1:37:19] gallons, what's my bill going to look like next month? We built that

[1:37:23] calculator out of the response from a listening session a year ago. And I know

[1:37:27] for the first few months it got used a lot because I took a lot of meetings

[1:37:30] about it and I know staff took a lot of meetings with citizens about it. So, I'm

[1:37:33] just reminding you all it is there for your awareness or to play with the

[1:37:37] numbers.

[1:37:41] Yes, ma'am.

[1:37:46] » Sorry, Melantha Amos. I was looking at um something that a friend was texting

[1:37:49] me. Um her question was um with all these changes and increases that we're

[1:37:55] going to be funding, do we have any plans to use some of these increases to

[1:38:00] help when we have these storms? Um particular if we go to a snow situation

[1:38:04] that we did last year, how that's going to affect because it seemed the priority

[1:38:08] was the bypass where used to be the main road of Havlock. Is that still a DOT

[1:38:13] issue or is that a Havlock Craven County issue so that we can get those roads

[1:38:18] clears faster without having to focus everything on the bypass which we're not

[1:38:22] used to? >> Oh, great question. So that was one

[1:38:26] lesson learned from uh this last snowageddon which was DOT did the bypass

[1:38:32] really quick and then Patrick had to strongarm some folks to get them to do

[1:38:37] you know they came through Havlock initially and then they kind of it got

[1:38:40] busy and forgot and so our folks had to remind them to come back and get their

[1:38:44] main roads cleared in Havlock. Some of this money in this budget will not go to

[1:38:48] any of that. I will say with all caution, a new piece of equipment we are

[1:38:53] currently buying right now will come with a snow plow attachment. Don't

[1:38:57] expect we're plowing 46 miles of roads with that. That is so we can plow for

[1:39:01] emergency services because Patrick and his team were out with a backhoe this

[1:39:05] last time just to get because remember y'all, we were all stuck at home. But

[1:39:10] our fire, police, EMS, our water, and our wastewater were immediately out in

[1:39:14] the field battling demons all day while we were safe in our homes or having

[1:39:19] snowball fights with our kids. And we were using back hose to try to clear

[1:39:23] that area. That's not optimal. So, um, this new piece of equipment does have a

[1:39:28] little snow plow. We will use it to plow. It will allow us to get open our

[1:39:33] buildings open faster. So, we'll be able to do city hall parking lot, tours and

[1:39:36] event center parking lot, things like that. so we can get back to business

[1:39:39] quicker, but it will not be enough to do 46 miles worth. Um, we did learn the

[1:39:44] lesson of maybe talking to DOT more proactively next time because of the

[1:39:48] bypass and that is a part of his protocol now in that scenario, including

[1:39:52] for hurricane storms. We'll know remind them, hey, we're down here on the other

[1:39:55] road. DOT will continue to own business 70 as they call it now. We're not we're

[1:40:00] not going to take that road. So, how do DOT will continue to own Highway 70.

[1:40:05] City of Havlock taking that would be a very risky and expensive move because

[1:40:09] then we would have to own that road. So we're going to let DOT keep that and

[1:40:12] just work with them on that road.

[1:40:19] » Jim Schmid 437 Fox Hunt Lane. When is the uh NC do preparing to are they going

[1:40:24] to pave the entire through the city and I assume the work that's being done

[1:40:28] right now is in preparation for that paving the curving that they're doing

[1:40:31] along the sides of the roads. New concrete work.

[1:40:34] » Exactly. Is that right? >> Okay.

[1:40:35] » Yes, sir. So, uh, DOT's been doing curbing work, if you haven't noticed, up

[1:40:39] and down Highway 70 and around Cunningham and all that for the last two

[1:40:43] months, maybe a month and a half. And they've got a bunch more spots marked.

[1:40:48] They are when they finish what they're doing on the east end and the west end,

[1:40:52] they are going to pave the entire city of Havlock. It'll be what they call

[1:40:55] milling fill. So, you've noticed on the east end of town where they're doing the

[1:40:59] new paving, they're grinding it out and matching it. When they do the center

[1:41:03] part of the city, it's if you were in Newport last year, they did it in

[1:41:06] Newport all up and down Highway 70. There's going to be a piece of equipment

[1:41:10] that grinds up two inches of asphalt, puts it in a truck. They're either going

[1:41:14] to remelt it and put it back down or they'll bring in fresh asphalt behind it

[1:41:17] so the road can't continually get higher. It will be aggravating for a

[1:41:21] little while. We're going to have one lane closures up and down Highway 70 on

[1:41:26] one side at a time while they do that, but they are going to do the entire city

[1:41:30] from East End to Sloum all the way to the Sloum flyover. So, you'll have all

[1:41:35] new pavement. It supposed to start in the next few weeks. They told us June.

[1:41:39] So, they seem to be on schedule. Uh I know they won't start till their

[1:41:43] curbing's done until they can kind of move some resources off the ends, but

[1:41:47] they told us they would start in June. And I would say it's at least 30 to 40

[1:41:52] days, Patrick, maybe longer, in order for them to complete that through

[1:41:55] Havlock. But that's why all your curbs and storm drains have been getting

[1:41:59] replaced. And while they've been doing the a lot of it is going to happen at

[1:42:02] night. Thank you, Ray, for that. Thank you for the reminder. They are going to

[1:42:05] do a lot of that at night.

[1:42:10] And we always are very clear to them that our business hours in Havlock are

[1:42:14] not regular business hours. DOT reiterated that to us that they always

[1:42:18] stoppages. You can't be paving at 1500 to 1,600 because that's when everyone's

[1:42:22] coming off the base. Um, and they they do know that and they don't pay super

[1:42:26] early in the morning for the same reason.

[1:42:29] All right. What else?

[1:42:34] All right. So, what'll happen is the board's going to go into a workshop on

[1:42:38] Wednesday. Is that that workshop is here, correct? So, the workshop will be

[1:42:42] here in this building Wednesday and they'll be talking about what

[1:42:46] they're going to do to finalize the budget and get the numbers in line. Um,

[1:42:51] and then June 22nd will be uh when they actually approve a budget. And um I know

[1:42:58] everybody appreciates your input and questions today, but you don't have to

[1:43:03] end today. Uh we I have office hours. You can contact all of us via the

[1:43:08] website if you click the email button. Um, you can get to all of us via email.

[1:43:12] I'm happy to sit down and talk to anybody that would like to if you want

[1:43:15] to dig in a little deeper. We went a little further than 10,000 ft. We got a

[1:43:19] little bit deeper today. Uh, but we can get into the adnauseium details if

[1:43:23] anybody would like to anytime you want to.

[1:43:26] All right, no more questions. Last call. All right, I'm going to have to take a

[1:43:30] motion to adjurnn from the board. Motion from Cynthia, second from Mark. All

[1:43:34] those in favor? Those opposed? All right. Thank you'all all for coming and

[1:43:39] we'll answer questions afterwards if you need us to.

2026 Session 1: Proposed Fiscal Budget

Transcript