[0:03] We

[3:48] have two purposes on our call for this particular meeting. One was to just review the revenues as a relates to the recent bill of 1076. I believe you've had some conversation with folks.

[4:00] We want to report that, but it feels like it's spare of the stable. And then, secondarily, some economic development opportunities that we got a close session for.

[4:09] And so with that, can I turn over to you, Mr. Rom?

[4:11] We've reviewed the legislation as it currently stands, and while the fiscal year 27 budget does not have the transfers in it that 1076 addresses, we do feel like it could hinder our ability to plan for the future.

[4:31] not knowing exactly what it is about it, and knowing that Rocky Mountain would be the only

[4:38] municipality outside of I think Louisburg that it would impact. And the city has not done to my knowledge

[4:44] anything outside of the current law. And so if we are to not have that flexibility in the future,

[4:51] it could potentially mean substantial tax increase because the revenue would have to come from

[4:57] on a place I would like for sure to add or take away from the best thing.

[5:04] I don't really have anything to add, you know, just the main thing is the cost allocation,

[5:14] how we decrease the amount of that this year for in fiscal 27.

[5:23] But that is the unknown to me in reading legislation because it says we can have cost allocation, but yeah, what does that mean?

[5:39] I guess then really the recommendation is that we felt comfortable.

[5:44] That in 76 passes as written on the current budget or car in the additional revenue considerations, but maybe next year maybe a different story.

[5:54] uh... that is correct uh... as it is now uh... the fiscal year 27 does not have any additional

[5:59] transfer outside of our uh... calls uh... allocation uh... in other words that

[6:03] administrator fees

[6:05] but uh... outside of

[6:06] and thanks for fiscal year

[6:08] it is unknown and it has a potential to uh...

[6:11] being very drastic regard to

[6:13] where the additional funding would need to come from

[6:16] because it's just a circumstance uh... doctors and councillors

[6:19] do we know exactly

[6:21] I've read the bill, but do we know exactly,

[6:26] we're talking about transfers and we're talking

[6:27] about administrative service storage.

[6:29] Do we know exactly because it's five a year we're mentioning, depending on which way it

[6:36] goes or it's unclear, do we have any, I guess I might be looking at the attorney, we have

[6:41] any clarity on that, what is exactly, targeting, is that the transfers, is that admin phase,

[6:47] as of both, and to your point, we'll go ahead and start.

[6:55] Yes, so I would agree with Cheryl's conclusion that there is some open question.

[7:02] It seems primarily focused on the long, already restricts our ability to transfer straight

[7:11] out of it, you know, to you said it has an impact, it's probably dealing with the admin fees and taking kind of a broader view, not necessarily drawing the distinction that the current statute draws between peer transfers that are returned on the best way.

[7:30] This is actually currently worth it. And just looking at general transferring away from the utility, sort of more broadly.

[7:41] You know, I think the key, at least at this point, is this album is said, you know, we're confident based on what we understand that language to mean right now, that the current budget, the council will vote on tonight will be fine.

[7:56] it's just kind of as that language gets finalized. Of course, it's not, it's not wall

[8:01] currently. There's always the possibility of additional changes. It's just

[8:07] the impact on how the city deals with the final language could come down the road. But

[8:13] as it currently stands today, it's on so that we think we're comfortable with what the

[8:20] the current state of the bill seems to be regulated.

[8:24] And that's my interpretation as well.

[8:28] But to your point, if it changes,

[8:31] this legislation hasn't passed and it included

[8:34] some of those fees or all of the fees.

[8:38] What do we do?

[8:40] When we have a budget that we're voting on tonight,

[8:43] we have to have a budget in place by July 1.

[8:47] What do we do?

[8:48] Yeah.

[8:49] So, that's, once it's in for a second, the bill changes pretty clearly in a way that creates a problem with this fiscal year.

[9:00] When Council adopts the budget, as it has to, by July 1, we can't go back and adjust the tax rate for the coming year.

[9:08] We don't get a second shot at that.

[9:10] And so then it will be, you know, Elton and his team looking at those sources of revenue to the extent they're needed to cover any additional restrictions.

[9:18] that could be added to 1076 and, you know, the ability to do that is relatively limited.

[9:26] I think we saw some of that when the current financial situation first came into view,

[9:34] where there was a bit of scrambling about what revenues sources can be adjusted now.

[9:39] But primarily it's on the call side.

[9:42] If there is a material change to 1076, we'd be essentially in that same position.

[9:50] Well,

[9:53] you use the word materially.

[9:55] There's just so many unknowns.

[9:56] And that's why in the last meeting, I used the word.

[10:01] I might have used the word reckless.

[10:02] I'm not sure if I've been or not, but I am now.

[10:05] It's being this late hour, not going for what's in front of us and what we have to do

[10:15] stashed totally by law from the State and North Carolina.

[10:18] We have the legislators who typically have, of course,

[10:28] that we have in this body right here,

[10:31] is derived from the State legislation.

[10:32] We recognize that.

[10:35] And if it changes materially as Newster Attorney, just stated,

[10:44] they're going to have to, along with anything that they bring, they need to bring a solution.

[10:50] If they're going to cause it, because I hate to think that we have to do.

[10:56] And I think

[11:01] it could devastate not only Rocky Mount with this region.

[11:05] And do I have concern with our admin service fees?

[11:09] Yes, I've had concerns since before I came to City Council.

[11:16] But give credit, we're credit student, you and your team this year have addressed admin service fees.

[11:21] And I think you've got your word that admin service fees are going to be addressed moving forward.

[11:27] And also in this public setting, I also want to say how disappointed I am to learn that

[11:34] that Nashville, the town of Nashville, sent a letter to legislators, essentially asking

[11:40] for this.

[11:41] And I'll know exactly what the letter said because I don't have a, have you had a copy of

[11:44] that letter?

[11:45] I had a nice anybody for the Sea Rock Mountain scene of copy of that letter.

[11:49] First off, I heard that.

[11:50] It was in their newspaper.

[11:51] It was in the National Graph.

[11:54] It's stated a letter was sent on the legislatures, but if that's the case, it was also the

[12:00] case stated by their mayor, pro-town, that they wanted something to the effect not be

[12:07] beholden to the sea right amount when it came to water in wastewater,

[12:14] and I think it's

[12:15] within our ability that we can do that.

[12:18] They've got to happen, that's what they want,

[12:23] but I know I'll make a long statement, but

[12:26] I'm not happy about this. I think it's a disservice to the C Rocky Mount. When I say C

[12:32] Rocky Mount, I'm talking about every citizen, every business, a hospital,

[12:39] and at the reach,

[12:41] I think it's extremely unfortunate. I think it's unfortunate that we have legislatures that

[12:46] are not even elected by the citizens of this area, specifically in Wilson, or part of this,

[12:58] And it happens, essentially, nothing we can do, but deal with the consequences.

[13:04] And we decided to do what we've got to do.

[13:08] Thank you, Mayor.

[13:12] Manager Dang was a couple of questions.

[13:14] Refresh by memorandum, those in the public.

[13:19] Right now, statutorily, is it 3% that we could pass?

[13:26] Is that the correct percentage right there there are two percentage rates I think is 3% and 5%

[13:32] depending on growth receipts and things on type of investment the key is that I'd like to remind

[13:38] Council is that while the city has made those transfers pass back in December when we revised our fiscal year 26 budget we stopped that

[13:47] So the things that this new legislation is trying to address, the city of Rocky Mountain has already done.

[13:55] So it's really unnecessary.

[13:57] It just prohibits us from having flexibility in the future.

[14:00] Should the case come up that we need to make those files and fund transfer?

[14:06] Our next question, revenues from our enterprise funds.

[14:12] This bill passes like it is.

[14:14] can we continue to use those funds to help pavement of infrastructure related to gas, electric,

[14:23] water, sewer, water runoff?

[14:27] Yes, we would.

[14:28] We would be able to use the funds that come from each enterprise fund for direct impact

[14:34] for any type of infrastructure improvement in those different departments.

[14:39] But we need to make major repairs to a building.

[14:43] or someone for seeing event, those going have to come from the general fund. Is that correct?

[14:49] That's correct. If the building is associated with the general fund, then yes, those funds would have to come from the general fund.

[14:55] If those, the building is related to one of the utility fund, then those funds would have to come.

[15:01] The other thing I'd like to remind you all is not just a billy to transfer, but sometimes throughout the year you have to have and a fund transfer amongst the utility funds and we've done that for a couple of the projects that we have on going in the water department. If this is not allowed, we would not be able to do that, which puts us in a very difficult position to complete major projects.

[15:23] Well, I certainly am against the bill, President Lee Ridd.

[15:31] I believe the time in is nothing but political.

[15:36] I just wish the representatives had come to have a meeting with the manager and counsel

[15:45] to give us some sort of a heads up.

[15:49] Negotiation always works at the end.

[15:55] But I just want to say the NAS County residents who are paying for electric service, gas, and water to the city of Rocky Mall.

[16:09] The other residents of NAS County paying for such services to Duke or to whoever their rates are higher.

[16:17] Or you know, I don't have rallying here, but I'm pretty sure we are very competitive in that moment.

[16:21] That's great.

[16:23] So to me, why didn't she go out to Duke Powell?

[16:27] You know, it's all over.

[16:31] And the time and it's just absolutely off.

[16:37] But I feel confident at the end of the day,

[16:41] we will find a way.

[16:44] But people need to know that we are limited

[16:48] in how we produce future revenue.

[16:52] We came to rely on property, self-fax increases to a significant amount, v-hickle fees, still

[16:59] a significant amount, permit fees to a significant amount, the only source will be property

[17:07] tax.

[17:08] Is that great?

[17:09] That's great.

[17:10] Either raising the property taxes or having very, I would use the attorneys' word,

[17:15] material, cuts within our own going budget, and that means sometimes people and deferred

[17:21] maintenance. This budget this year has some capital projects included in it, but a lot of those

[17:26] capital projects that we had or some of the equipment that we need. We deferred it for future years.

[17:31] If we don't have this funding available for us, we're going to need to defer that even long

[17:35] and that's something that I just personally don't think that we would be able to do. I do know that

[17:40] you all have mentioned Nashville and Nash County, but I do think that also Wilson was mentioned in

[17:45] this legislation or there's help supporting this legislation to represent it from that area.

[17:49] I do know that of the close to 30,000 customers that we have on the electric only nine of those are in Wilson County and of that nine only seven are residential.

[18:01] So out of 30,000, you're only talking about seven individuals.

[18:09] Hey, what else?

[18:13] I need a motion to go into close to us.

[18:15] You're free.

[18:16] So, man.

[18:17] First off, man.

[18:18] All together.

[18:19] All right.

[18:20] We're now in close to us.

Special Called Committee of the Whole Meeting, June 22

Transcript