Good evening and would like to welcome
everyone to the SP the special city
council meeting town hall meeting.
[clears throat] Um we do have this
televised as tonight as well. I'm happy
that we have some participants here that
came in person and brave the hot
weather, but um this will be viewed
online and we usually have lots of
followers with that. So, uh we will go
ahead and start out with the roll call,
please. Connie
>> B
>> here.
>> Mang
>> here.
>> Nichols
>> here.
>> Alson
>> here.
>> Sfield
>> here. Swanson
>> here. I will mention that council member
Swanson is excused for the evening.
She's at a trip overseas out of the
country right now. She wishes to be here
and will join us at the next quarterly
meeting. So, I'd like to move on to
agenda item two. It's the budget
development process. We do have Rich
Morgan here from our finance department.
Um, Rich will update the public on the
budget development process.
>> Okay.
No spitting.
>> Yeah. none allowed. And by the way, for
the others that are here to comment, um
we'll take about a half hour with Rich.
And um after that, it is open for some
dialogue in case you're waiting for
that.
>> I thought I would just open with one
caveat. I I am happy to be here, mayor,
council, happy to talk with you
generally about how a mu a municipal
organization would budget. If I crack or
start crying, don't worry. I'm a dad and
my daughter's leaving for California
tomorrow. We just finished our last
supper and Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> It's not the budget that's making me
cry.
>> No, I promise. You know what's important
in life.
>> Okay.
So Idaho code 50 uh chapter 10 section 2
says the city council of each city shall
pri prior to passing the annual
appropriation ordinance prepare a budget
estimating the probable amount of money
necessary for all purposes for which an
appropriation is to be made. So, the
reason or one of the reasons that you
budget is because Idaho has staturally
required you to. You're going to hear me
say a lot about Idaho because we are
regulated by Idaho. The very fact that
we exist is because Idaho lets us or
allows us to through statute. Idaho code
67, which is also relied upon quite a
bit in municipal finances, says budget
information shall conform to the
standards established in the uniform
accounting manual for local government
entities. This is where we're going to
get um the authority to rely on GAP
which is generally accepted accounting
principles as promulgated by gazby which
is the governmental accounting standards
board.
So why budget? We just talked about the
statutoily required um what we have to
do, but there are also some very very
good reasons why even if it wasn't
statutoily required, we should probably
go through this process. And the first
one is that it's a policy document. Uh
the council and the mayor can use this
process and this procedure to set policy
simply by funding and not funding what
you want to and not want to fund. It's a
financial plan. They're guard rails. I
use that analogy a lot. The budget is
not actual. It's an estimate, but it
sets those guard rails for department
heads and for the city um where we're
going to go. It's a legal appropriation.
So, now we're back to statute. If we
didn't pass the ordinance that we will
uh coming in in August, we would not
have the authority to spend any money.
Um, so you guys really do hold those
purse strings. Um, giving us that
authority to to to
cash a check. It's a communication tool.
We have a few people in the room. We'll
have people online. It's going to be
available online. We get records
requests for it. It's a very easy way to
communicate what we're going to do with
the funds that we receive. And it also
allows accountability because we can
compare what really happened, what
actually happened with the plan.
Idaho budget requirements. So first just
to set this is this is a requirement
that we have to to follow. We can't pick
our own fiscal year. Our fiscal year is
from October 1 to September 30 and that
is also set by the state.
What do we have to do or what are we
required by statute to set the budget?
Well, we need to estimate our revenues
by fund. And you'll hear me say that a
lot too because a lot of times we'll
talk about departments, we'll talk about
line items, we'll talk about specific
commodities like fuel or something
that's catching our attention. But the
budget is always by fund. We need to
estimate our expenditures by fund. They
are required to balance. So when we
publish, you'll see this time at our
revenues are going to be 186 million and
our expenses are going to be 186
million. Now a lot of people say, "Well,
what if you want to save or what if you
don't want to spend all that?" Well,
that's possible. You'd see a line item,
a specific line item that would be
called transfer to reserve. If you're
going to spend down now, sometimes you
spend some of your reserves. We have
that happening in some of our funds as
well. Uh the biggest one is the the uh
water pollution control fund. This
coming year they have an $8 million
project. So they're going to use their
reserves. Instead of transfer to
reserves, you're going to see a transfer
out of reserves and that becomes a
revenue source. So
then we have tenative approval before
publishing the notice of public hearing
and we just finished that. In fact, we
took an extra step. We had tentative
approval and then we actually found a
little bit more revenue and because we
hadn't published I thought it was a good
idea to get it that in there and we
again approved tenatively that 186
million and then we published the notice
of public hearing. I do have I'll a
quick jump because I think I can go
back. Whoops.
This is the notice of public hearing
that we've prepared. Now, I know you
can't see the detail very well. There's
55 funds here at the city, but that's
what it'll look like. Um, if we go back
now, that notice of public hearing, and
it does, it needs to include the date,
the time, the location.
And in the notice of public hearing, you
actually do have to split your revenues
into two. You have to show the proposed
tax revenues and then everything else.
You have to have the proposed
expenditures and then that comparative
information. You are required to have
two years plus the proposed. And I've
always used budget, but I did learn just
in the last couple of weeks that the
oldest year where actuals are available,
you could use actuals. So, for example,
we're going to publish 27 as a proposed
26 as a budget number because we don't
know what our actual total is yet. And
then 25 could be either what the budget
was was set, which is what we've
prepared, or the actuals.
>> Can you remind us real quick, Rich, when
the public hearing is the date of the
budget public hearing?
>> The actual one we're that's coming up.
>> That's our next council meeting on
August 6th.
>> Okay. Thank you.
>> And that's the opportunity. You know,
most of the time government in a in a
represent re representative republic,
which we are, is um what I like to call
a spectator sport. These guys get to
come and watch.
They're spectators. They've elected you
to do their job and they get to watch.
Every once in a while, they get to
participate. This is one of those every
once in a while where we're required to
have a public hearing and they can
actually come up and address you. I
think there's a lot of heartburn
sometimes in government because people
don't realize that they always hear
democracy, it's my government and those
are all true, but it really is a
spectator sport. So, okay. So, we'll
hold the public hearing. Um, you could
adopt the budget on the same day, but
the city of Pocutello chooses to adopt
the budget the next meeting so that you
have time to think about the comments
that were made in that public hearing
and that would be August 20th
is when we'll adopt that budget. Then we
certify our property taxes to the
county. So, we'll send everything. We
have to send our notice of public
hearing. We have to send the budget. We
have to send what's called the L2. It's
a form that specifies how much budget
we're asking the county to levy.
Everyone says, "What's the le what are
you going to set the levy at?" Well, you guys don't set the levy. You set a
budget. I don't want to be misleading.
What you do affects the levy. Certainly
it does, but you don't set a levy. You
set a budget. And you're limited in
being able to do that. the the the state
says that you cannot exceed 3% of the
highest of the last three years. That's
usually the most current year, but if
for some reason we had a year that was
lower in front of that, you can go back
three years, look at look at those three
years and choose 3% of the highest, you
cannot exceed when you're using
foregone, which we are 1% for M or 3%
for capital use. and we're choosing 1%
or have proposed 1% with our M. And then
just recently the legislature passed a
new limit. So after all of that, they'll
look at the total increase including
annexation,
new construction, the 3%.
Wait a minute. I don't think it does
include annexation or new construction.
Those go on automatically. It's the 3%.
It's your use of foregone and you can't
exceed that 8% increase.
Sorry, I got I got a little excited
there and I didn't want to misspeak.
>> Also, another one of the revenue sources
that the city relies on very heavily are
fees. Those are in our enterprise funds.
All the taxes are in our governmental
funds. The fees that we are most most um
familiar with are water, sewer,
sanitation.
We send out one bill and everyone pays
their hundred plus dollars, but it
actually is three separate utilities.
It's water
>> sanitation, please.
>> When you're done with your blanket of
points whenever you're done with that
point.
>> No. Well, so those can those are not
limited like the property tax increases.
The only caveat there is there's a 5%
line drawn. If you if you raise a fee
under that 5%,
you just have to pass it. We have to go
through the process. We have to present
why we want that fee raised and then you
guys will decide yes or no. If the fee
is over 5%, you do again have to go
through a public hearing and have input
from constituents and citizens on those
fees.
>> So, uh I if you could briefly uh give us
a
description on what foregone
specifically is so that people at home
when they hear the term foregone,
they'll understand.
>> You bet.
Forgon is an accounting
of
the ability that you had to tax and
chose not to.
There's no money there. It's just
tracking
if that makes sense. You You could have
you. So, let's say your budget is $1,000
and you can increase it to
$1,300,
but you only choose to increase it to
$1,200.
We don't take that increment of $100,
but we track it.
and the state has so far preserved your
ability to come back later
and say yeah we need that now.
>> So it's is that fair?
>> So it's the number or the amount that we
had foregone on collecting.
>> That is correct. Uh currently
[clears throat] the city has about $5
million
being tracked in their foregone amount
>> and of that total balance of foregone we
can only take up to 3%
of that or a lot for
>> well 1% of that is three I think our
foregone is $375,000
and that can be permanently placed into
M into the levy and every year it will
be a part of that taxing levy. You do
have the opportunity to take another 3%
which would be almost a million dollars
or maybe just just barely over a million
dollars. It's a onetime shot. It reduces
your foregone by that million dollars,
but you never see that again and it
doesn't roll over.
>> So those are the two ways you can use
that foregone. Thank you,
>> Rich. Um, this might be something for
myself I don't always get as well as the
audience at home and here. Um, there's
that overall 8% limit and just how
that's adding up. But it's hard to grasp
that because you can get the 3% of the
highest last years, last three years,
and then your management and overhead
can exceed 1% and you can exceed 3% for
capital and foregone. Well, that only
adds up to 7%.
>> Right?
I'd have to show you some examples, I
think, to make that clear. Uh to to to
show you the math of how that would
actually happen
>> and could happen.
>> Okay. So, it's a possibility that could
happen, but we never seem to bump into
that scenario here.
>> We haven't yet. That is correct.
>> Okay.
What that does, what the legislature was
trying to do there is actually it is
actually cap the increase and it forces
because of the computation or the math
it forces the levy down
>> because it used to be that rather than
1% on management and overhead we could
take three
or maybe I don't
>> well it actually used to be when I
started that you could take the whole
>> whatever your gun amount is that is
correct. Okay. But that's
>> these limits are are fairly new. All of
them.
>> Yeah. The 1% really
>> Yeah. The foregone may be sitting there,
but you're you're really tight on what
you can take is the crux of it,
>> right? I think it's I think it's been I keep telling myself I shouldn't speak
on the fly, but it's within five years
that all of those limits have come into
play.
>> Mhm.
And there was a lot of hubbhub on that
year that they started them if city
should go ahead and take the foregon
before it's limited.
>> Yeah.
>> So, but we're way past that now.
>> Okay.
>> All right.
Well,
amending the budget. We get a lot of
questions about that. the same exact
process that you're [clears throat]
going through now. Although
I guess the difference is
usually when you're amending the budget,
you're specifically thinking about one
revenue
stream that that either is new uh we
missed something reserves that we didn't
include before and now we do want to use
them for some reason. That's a revenue
source that could be for amending the
budget. So, it seems like it's more
focused when you're amending the budget
then than when we go through this
process in August, but it's the exact
same steps that we go through.
What does the city budget pay for? I
just threw up some of these numbers to
show you. Police, there's two numbers
there. Police is 44% of the general fund
and 12% of the total budget of the city.
Animal control which is under the police
is 3% of the general fund and 8 and8%
of the total city budget. Fire is 23%
of the general fund and 6% of the total
city budget. I think it's interesting to
know and I think it's a good thing that
if you look at the general fund 75%
almost 75% of those funds are going to
public safety and I think citizens
support that. I really do. It's we're
not
um funding something that doesn't get a
lot of their support. Parks is 2% of the
total. Um,
cemetery is 0.5%, streets is 5%.
Transportation was three, water nine,
wastewater eight, sanitation seven, and
you can see libraries two, airport one,
internal service was five.
Just an interesting way to look at um
how those 55 funds make up the total.
These I picked these because these are
the ones that are usually their
operating funds and usually the funds
that are that the citizen interacts with
right the ones that they see.
Where does the money come from? So
property tax makes up 20% of the entire
budget of the city. Shared revenue
intergovernmental like sales gas. So
sales tax the 6% you pay at the register
when you're at Walmart. Gas tax when you
fill up your car. the liquor tax. So, if
my presentation is driving you to go
across the parking lot here in a minute,
you're helping the city budget.
Uh, utility charges, 25%. That's all
three of them. Franchise fees, those are
those fees that we collect from um Idaho
Power, Gas, it's one. Permits, permits,
licenses, fees, leases. I added those
all together. Kind of a catch-all, too.
grants. 18% of our budget is from
grants. We hear a lot of people saying,
"Well, look for different ways to fund
what's going on at city hall." And this
one surprised me. I hadn't looked at
that number and the mayor asked me to.
That's almost as much as property tax.
I I think that goes to show that we are
trying to look for different ways,
different revenue sources and that were
successful. [clears throat]
>> I was pretty happy with that number.
Interest is 2%. We've had a lot of talk
about that. reserves. A lot of people do
not look as at reserves as a revenue
source, but that's exactly what it is
when it's budgeting is you bring it back
in as a as a revenue stream.
>> Are there other percentages, Rich?
Because that didn't add up to 100.
>> That is true. I only picked the ones
that I thought were
>> Okay, just in case someone's wondering
why that doesn't add up to 100%.
>> That's a really good point, Mayor. and it would have taken a couple of
slides to get through them all.
>> But so if the council is interested, it
would be really easy, I think you've
seen this report before, to put that
percentage out on every single fund and get you that information and and
maybe I should just make a note of doing
that because it's good information to
know.
Oh, I went the wrong way. Sorry.
So we're doing governmental accounting
and it's by fund. Uh we have several
fund types. Our governmental funds are
the general. There are eight of them.
Each fund that receives property tax is
a governmental fund. We have a highway
streets and roads fund. That's a
governmental fund. It receives property
tax. We have 11 enterprise funds. That's
because we count their capital and their
debt service. Each one of our enterprise
uh funds has a capital fund and a debt
service fund. We have eight internal
service funds, seven capital projects
funds, 20 special revenue funds, and one
fudiciary fund. That fidiciary fund is
the police retirement. I believe there
are 15
participants left in that fund.
What's the budget calendar? Well, we're
going to start in January. In fact, I
think we've [laughter] talked about
we're going to keep we're going to keep
going. So, when I put this together,
it's what we have done, but we are
actually going to, I believe, have
meetings either monthly or
>> every other month or something. We're
going to keep going and keep the
conversation going and try to get some
of the things we've talked about in the
past budget strategic. But basically
what you do is you sit down with the decision makers
that are you and you find out what their
goals are. You do some strategic
planning and um we did that. Um one of
the things that sticks in my mind that
we always talk about is curb appeal.
There were others. I I think we had five
main 13 total. Um but we did that in
March. I think it's important and and
this was a little bit of a change for
everybody here at the city is that you
uh look at your revenues and wage and
wage related expenses because those
things really don't
necessarily the wage and wage related
expenses. We can pretty much h nail
those down. We know who works for us. We
know how much they make. We know what
those related expenses are going to be.
And the reason you want to do revenue
first is because you need to know how
big your pie is going to be when you
start talking about adding um the
department requests. Uh April, May, we
have a lot of departments for those
requests. June the council workshops
when we get it all put together. July
the tenative budget adoption. In August
we'll have the public hearing. Now, in
August, we're going to adopt our our um
ordinance, but the drop dead is actually
that first September, that first
Thursday in September. The reason we
build our calendar that way is because
if for some reason you guys throw a loba
bomb at us and we have to back up and do
something different
because you want to change direction or
change your goals or whatever, we have
that. We're nimble enough to do that. We
have the opportunity and one more
chance, one more meeting that we can
make that um correction.
What's a sound budget philosophy?
spend with spend within reoccurring
revenues. That means the ones that come
back every year. Maintain adequate
reserves. We've talked about this a
little bit. Three months of operations
and every single one of our funds has at
least three months of operations. What
happens after 3 months? Well, then you
start building your capital plan. And uh
we're actually moving into a formal
process. We've had informal capital
plans, but we're going to move into a
formal process of that capital plan,
which does include um deferred
maintenance, prepare for emergencies,
invest in infrastructure, and have a
multi-year plan. I'm really excited
about the opportunities we have with
open gov. We have started entering 20 uh
28 already. I'll be able to do the L2
for four years ahead. we can um
tenatively look at wage wage related
expenses. It it's going to be great.
We'll be able to give you a real
snapshot of what it might look like for
four years instead of one. I almost wish
in Oregon you can adopt two years at a
time. And I almost wish that we could do
that, but I don't think we'll ever get
the conservative cowboys in Idaho to
>> loosen up those rains that much, which
is probably a good thing.
>> What are the challenges?
Inflation might be the biggest one. And
I looked up last month's or the or 12
months ending May of 2026. That's the
latest data that we've got. Inflation's
4.2%.
Well, I mean, that's a problem already
because we can only go three, right? So,
we're looking at less buying power.
Employee wages are challenges. They're
the largest part of the budget in any
fund.
Insurance, it's the largest individual
annual increase. I looked up what is an
average annual increase for health
insurance for Idaho municipalities and
it's 10 to 12%. That is that is what
I've seen in my in in my past. It's what
we saw this year. It's it's just it
rings true that that is one of the
[snorts] biggest challenges we have.
Deferred maintenance I mentioned that
infrastructure we are I think taking a
great step towards that in the capital
plan growth.
I looked up the Pocutello metro area. I
think that would probably just include
like Portf Valley. Our growth is really
small.5%.
And so that's one of the challenges we
have. We want we are going to have to
provide not more with less, but we're
going to have to provide what we're
doing. We're going to have to try and
maintain what we're doing with less.
uh state legislation and you guys saw
that clearly HB uh HB312 the funding
evaporated and we had a $ 1.3 million
hole in our highway streets and roads
just economic uncertainty alto together
what's the council's role in governance
well you set priorities you set service
levels you adopt tenative and final
budgets meeting statutory requirements
you monitor our performance with our
reports back. Uh you make adjustments as
needed. And I think that's why it's so
important that we keep some of these
meetings going and the discussion going.
Really, what you guys do is protect the
city's long-term financial health.
That's that's what you're supposed to
do. I thought I'd slide in really quick.
I don't even know. Oh, I'm way over
time. I better hurry.
>> You're okay. Yeah, just a few minutes is
fine.
>> I thought this was I thought this would
be really good for those who are
listening. These are the things that I
have gleaned from you as we've talked
about the budget. Build a better
Pocutello.
Be proactive versus reactive. Be
accurate, timely, understandable.
What do you want to pay for and not want
to pay for? If this was a new request,
would you fund it and stop keeping
score? I think those are all really good
and it shows the the flavor of the
council that we have.
It shows that you guys are really trying
hard to put something together that's
meaningful when it comes to the budget
and and doing your due diligence and I
appreciate that. What's management's
role? develop a calendar, prepare the
estimates, draft the budget, review for
accuracy, report performance, carry out
adjustments, and in the end, it's to
protect the city's long-term financial
health. I highlighted that because
we have the same role in the end. We
just get there together in a different
way.
So, in the end, what makes a healthy
budget? balanced revenues and
expenditures, healthy reserves, three
months of operations, realistic
revenues, those those based projections
in revenues. We had a little bit of that
happened last year where maybe some of
the projections were
op a little too optimistic. It's not bad
to be optimistic, but maybe in budgeting
we should dial it back just a little
bit. Sustainable staffing, good
management because it's our biggest
expense. capital investment, long-term
planning. We're taking a step there and
timely financial reporting.
And I want to tell you that today we
started disseminating our fiscal year 24
financial report. It's old news, but
it's still exciting to have it done. And
we're well on our way to 25. So, I do
believe we can be caught up for the
current year when it's due in March of
2017. Yeah, kudos to you and your staff
for that. That's
>> my staff's been a big part of
>> accomplishment and I know you've been
laser [clears throat] focused on that
since [laughter] you've gotten here.
>> Thank you. I am going to quickly slip
this in. This is kind of making a right
turn, but we have an audit committee.
It's not something that we had uh at the
city of Chubik. It's really important.
Doran actually at Deon wanted the city
of Chvik to set one up. Uh what is the
role of the audit committee? And and one
of the reasons I want to slip it in is
because during our final interview for
fiscal year 24, Dorne thought or Deon
and company thought Dorne's our auditor,
I probably should say Deon and company
suggested that we do some training and
education on the role of the audit
committee, especially on uh bullet
number five, but audit committee, they
they're financial reporting oversight.
They're the ones that reviewed the
financials and they accepted them. that
the financials were actually accepted in
May 26th, but there were some things
change in my department and there are
some things happen with the financials
that we had a little bit of cleanup to
do. So, that took us about 55 days to
get that through and get her done.
Oversight of the external audit, they
take care of what's happening with Deon.
Internal control oversight, risk
management oversight. I'm going to skip
that ethics one because I'd like to just
point it out at the end. Monitoring,
corrective actions, and communications
with the governing body. And there are
two council members on that audit
committee. Council member Mangum and
council member Swanson are both on
there. So, but pointing out ethics and
fraud. So, if there's something going on
at the city that you thought that's not
right or could even be maybe fraud or
you're like, "Where did all that money
go?" and you're uncomfortable in either
talking to your supervisor, which is
regular chain of command, that's what we
usually do, or um
there's another way for you to uh get
your concern taken care of, and that's
the audit committee. You can tell the
audit committee what you're thinking
about, what you've seen, what you've
heard, what's your concern, and they
will, I know they will take it
seriously, and they'll investigate it,
report back. at the end it's going to
come back to the mayor and you guys, but
um and we need to get that word out
so that it's one of our internal
controls
and we do have every once in a while and
sometimes it's baseless,
>> but we do have someone ask, well,
where's the money go?
>> You know,
>> what about me members of the public that
they're feeling that there's just some
shenanigans going on? I I want there to
be a someone to look into this. Is that
going to the audit committee as well or
is that more
>> both internal and external folks?
>> I'm sorry that I did not make that
clear. In fact,
um
I would like to make sure that that we
do enough education that our that our
public know that
>> and that they realize there's that
avenue that they could take to report
that. Yeah, the audit committee is huge
and I think getting that word out as
much as we can in that spirit of
transparency.
You know, you think something is going
on that's, you know, that there there is
a method that it will be looked into.
You know, I think it's very critical to
get that word out.
Thank you. Okay. Key takeaways. Budget's
planning. Budget reflects community
priorities. Every dollar has a purpose.
Financial stab sustainability requires
discipline and that's one thing I would
thank you guys for because I think you
do have that and I appreciate it.
Today's decision affect tomorrow's
taxpayers.
>> And back to the audit committee, Rich,
did you say there there are external
people that belong to that as well?
>> Yes, there are
>> internal and external folks that
>> on the committee. Yep.
>> Mhm. [snorts]
And then
>> there are two employees, there are two
council members, and there is one uh
he's a financial um provider in our
town. So, he brings some real expertise.
>> Yeah.
>> For the financial part, but
>> Okay. So, you you mentioned open.gov or
kind of the bigger question that this is
a a great broad level overview like if
I'm a citizen now and I really want to
dig into these numbers, where do I go?
How do I do that?
>> Well, and I'll have to apologize. I
think in the last meeting I told you
open gov was available and I since
learned like about 5 minutes after that
meeting that I was wrong that it's not.
And so we're going to take care of that
this week. and and my vision is that you
would go to the city's website and under
budgeting you would see a link to our
open gov software and be able to go in
and look. I do I think that's correct.
Um but again that link is not there. I
checked with it. I've checked with my
staff and we've got to set that up. So,
>> and we're looking hopefully by the end
of the month to get that going. Yep. You
know,
>> I think that'd be generous. I want to
have it done before then. So,
>> yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah, for sure.
>> What What does Open Gov do that our last
system didn't do? Because Open Gov's
less It's only about a year old. We've
only had that for about a year, haven't
we?
>> It really the biggest thing is provide
access, I think. um and maybe more
trusted access. Although we're putting
in the numbers, we're not we're not um
we don't have a period of time between
the request and delivery to look at it
and massage it or change it, right? The
numbers are there. They're right there.
>> The numbers are matched. They can go in
and look at them. So, I don't think
anything untrustworthy was working, but
I think that system allows the person to
feel that it's more trustworthy, if that
makes sense.
>> Okay.
>> I think that's the biggest thing.
>> Great.
>> They'll see the stories that were
presented. They'll see the total
budgets. Um,
and they can see those now as static
entries under
like the council's packets. And they do
look like they will look in open gov,
but we want to get them live.
>> Okay, great.
Okay. Well, well, thank you. It's it's a tad awkward how we set this up
because I know Rich is presenting to the
council. Um, but the way this was set up
was really to let the folks here know
and members of the public. So,
>> next time we'll have you flip around
toward the audience. But um that that
was the target. This was a
>> more of learning for us too, but we
wanted the members of the public to see
this.
>> I didn't realize I was so chatty. I they
told me 30 minutes
>> and I thought I'd take 20 and look, I
doubled that.
>> We could have told you it was going to
go longer. [laughter]
>> Yeah. Always does.
>> Thank you.
>> Okay. Thank you, Rich.
>> Thanks, Rich.
>> Okay. At this time, we will accept some
comments from the audience. We didn't
have anyone sign in at the start of the
meeting, but the sign-in sheet is at the
podium. And so, if you'd like three
minutes to speak on any topic that's on
your mind, we welcome that. Um, I do
need to remind everyone that regarding
the the appeal and the appeal for the uh
hearing examiner for that conditional
use permit for the data center, there's
a good chance that that's going to be
appealed by the applicant. And so where
it's an ongoing and the the council is
on under exparte, it's an exparte or
quas judicial matter, I should say. that
same rules govern that before where
we're still probably in that appeal
process. It's kind of like what I told
the public at council meeting last
Thursday night that if your your
comments pertain to something about that
appeal that uh we're not able to take
comments or hear comments like that
tonight, but any other subject is wide
open. And at this time, I'd invite you
to come to the podium if you'd like and
sign in. Hear what you got.
» [snorts]
[clears throat]
» Lydia Noble from Pocutello. I have three
things that I think um I would just like
the council to consider and I appreciate
your service and I'm glad that all of
you are doing it because it is a lot of
work and I want you to know that I
appreciate what you do. Um, first one is
I think that there's there are some
things that can be done that may not
maybe should be done. Just because it
can be done, maybe it shouldn't be being
done. And that has to do with the
interest. The fact that the interest
from most of the city departments seems
to be being swept into the general fund.
Whereas in other places, it's more that
those interest incomes are kept within
funds or departments so that those
departments have their own source of
income, source of revenue. So I know
this is not something that can be fixed
overnight. It's taken years to get here.
So it's just something I want you to
consider that as a member of the public
who has some financial background, I
would like to see us get back to that.
The next thing is the right of way. I
recently put in a public record request
to try to understand if the city has any
logical breakdown of how the row charges
that are buried into the budgets for the
enterprise departments water sanitation
WPC those kinds of things if there's a method to how those charges
are determined the answer I got was the
raftellis
rate study that we do every five years
I'm Not sure that's exactly correct. So
that brings me back to the initial
question. How are the row charges
determined? What is the methodology?
Because I believe Raphelis may just be
given that as part of the budget. So if
they're already given that, of course,
they're going to build the rate study
with th those numbers built into the
budget like they would build a budget,
you know, with salary information in it.
So my concern is in other cities, two
other cities, Lewon and Moscow have
already removed those kinds of charges
because they have been viewed as an
unconstitutional additional tax because
sanitation, water, you know, these
enterprise departments, they have
nothing to do with street maintenance
and the public already pays taxes,
levies, county taxes, state taxes for
the maintenance of our roads. So by
burying it in the budget of the
enterprise departments, I believe we
could be artificially inflating our fees
that we pay for city services. So I'd
like to see us get back to maybe not
doing that. It may take a few years to
get back to that. I understand, but I
just think it's not a good practice. And
just because we can do it, I don't think
we maybe should be doing it. Two other
cities have removed it.
>> And the last thing that I had, and I'm
running out of time,
>> I don't mind you going an extra minute.
There's not
>> and this last one is easy.
>> I've been watching the growth of the
city budget, but again, I'm looking at
total numbers and I know a lot of that
sometimes has the grants buried into it.
So, there's no easy way because the
city's never been really good about
advertising how much of that portion
comes out because it's simply the grants
that the city received that need to be
spent over one year, two years, five
years, whatever. But I would like to see
a comparison over let's say the last
decade of how the budget has grown, the
base budget, the budget that is the base
of the city over a 10-year period. I
would love to see a graphic of that or
something to that effect because that
would help the public understand the
budget isn't growing exponentially,
which is what I'm seeing when I'm
looking at it when the grants and
everything are put into it, but just how
we've been growing our budget.
>> Yeah. because the city the city itself
isn't growing by population that much.
So that's my concern that we need to
start looking at that type of a thing.
I've talked to other cities that have
told me, two other cities have told me
that they base the number of city
full-time positions on their population.
And they have between four and five city
employees for every 1,000 population
size. So, if they have an explosion in
population, that helps them to justify
additional full-time and I ask them,
"What do you do when your city isn't
growing and yet you see something
unusual come up as far as workload?"
They handle it with part-time workers is
what both cities told me. And that was
Twin Falls and Caldwell, I believe, that
I spoke with. So, I'm just giving you
that as it's something to to think
about.
>> Okay.
>> All right. Thank you.
>> Thank you. And I'll allow an opportunity
for council to whatever comments you
have. Like one quick one I have Lydia
is, you know, I understand what you're
saying. Duly noted about that interest.
Like we have all of our funds and
they're accumulating interest and it's
been practice to put that in the general
fund. Um you're right. It's a hard thing
to resolve overnight. You know, one
thing you probably know about this, but
with the street department this year,
like incremental step number one, that
we we did transfer that out of the
general fund and into the street
>> fund. And that that was part of the way
we were able to overcome that $1.3
million shortfall from the state. So, so hear what you're saying. I agree
that it's a a longer process and we we
we've talked much um you know with
finance staff and amongst ourselves on
what we can do to
>> to chip away at that and um you know and
then the rate study on the the
enterprise funds for the utilities. I I think that makes sense. Let's get some
logistics there. and um it got what
you're saying about take the grant
portion out too cuz sometimes that does
artificially inflate. Yeah.
>> So that those are my quick comments.
Just be happy if you you all have any
more.
>> Thank you.
>> So thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> All right. Be be happy to hear from some
others out there.
Otherwise, this might be the shortest
town hall meeting in history. [laughter]
» Yeah.
>> Okay. Well, appreciate you all being
here. Hopefully, you'll learn some
basics about budget formation and how we
put that all together. Um, we all have
email addresses. Our email addresses are
on the city's website. Mine is
mayorpocatello.gov.
I believe there's a council at
pocatello.gov that reaches everyone. So,
um, always happy to chat. Um, if you
want to talk with the mayor one on one,
I do accept appointments and I can get a
half hour. You may have to wait for two
or 3 weeks or so to get in, but um, just
know that we're all contactable and
please feel free to reach out.
Okay. And with that uh thank you and we
are adjourned for the evening.