[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.