Welcome to our regularly called meeting for tuesday, may 6th. Ms. Hilbert will you please call the? >> councilman de la garza. >> I'm present.
>> >> here. >> mayor pro tem young. >> mayor crocker.
>> here. If you would please rise and join me, we'll have a moment of silence. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
united states of america and to the republic for which it
stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the texas flag. I pledge allegiance to
thee , texas, one state under god, one and indivisible.
>> thank you. Please be seated. All right. So before we begin
today's meeting, I do want to take a moment to it knowledge
the sudden passing of robbie birch. Obviously this is hard,
y'all. Sorry. Deeply respected member of our community who made
a lasting impact. There will be much more to say in the days
ahead to honor his life, but for now, we extend our condolences to his family and all who are mourning this loss. So with that
we will jump into our business for the day , and we will start
with announcements and reminders. Mr. Garza. >> good evening mayor and council and certainly on behalf of myself and staff, we share in our condolences to the birch
family. We are keeping all of them in our prayers. Just a few announcements for you this evening. As a reminder, city
council will convene for a special meeting to canvas the election results this upcoming tuesday, may 13th, at 5:00 p.m.
here in council chambers. On behalf of the police department, we want to invite the public to join the police department and
the victoria county sheriff's office for the national peace officer memorial ceremony that will take place on thursday, may 15th, at 9:00 a.m. At the gazebo located in our beautiful daily
on plaza. The victoria police department and the victoria police foundation have partnered once again to host the annual
foot pursuit 5k and kids donut-that will take place on saturday, may 17th. The event is part of national police week in
observance of law enforcement officers who gave their lives in the line of duty. Early registration is available online
at the korea police foundation.org. And lastly, I'm going to turn it over to allison for an announcement of her own.
>> good evening, mayor and council. I'm very excited this evening to introduce you to our newest assistant city attorney,
kevin mckeague and. Please stand up. He got here on monday and started, hit the ground running with us. He comes from
huntsville, texas. He has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to being an attorney for a governmental entity. He
previously worked for the city of odessa, and so if you will all please join me in welcoming him to our team.
>> victor, you're right in the fire, second day and here you
are. Welcome. >> I just want to say thank you to ms. Lacey for giving me this opportunity. Came down and
interviewed for the position, and so, came down on sunday to start on monday and as I had the opportunity to visit victoria a
long time, and it's a beautiful city. Rowing and just happy to be here and hopefully I can help ms. Lacey with the city
attorney's office and the departments that I'm covering,
and with the municipal court . And so, look forward to being
here for quite some time, and thank you for the opportunity, and thank ms. Lacey and her staff for welcoming me. So thank
you. >> welcome aboard, great to have
you. >> those are all the announcements that we have for this evening. >> let me repeat that. Those are all the announcements that we
have for this evening. Thank you, george. Appreciate you always be on top of my microphone. >> then we will jump into public and employee recognitions, and I
know we have quite a few. Let see. We'll jump to item 2 a.
ms. Hill brick. >> item 2 a is the apraxia awareness month proclamation so apraxia awareness day was first
established in 2012 to bring awareness about apraxia speech and to encourage more people to learn about the disorder and its impact on individuals, while increasing public understanding
and support of those living with the condition, and whereas childhood apraxia in speech causes children to have significant difficulty learning to speak and is among the most
severe speech deficits in children. And whereas while the act of learning to speak comes effortlessly to most children,
those with apraxia require early appropriate and attentive speech therapy. Often for many years to learn to speak. And whereas,
without appropriate speech therapy intervention, children
with apraxia will have diminished communication skills and are placed at high risk for secondary impacts in reading, writing, spelling and other related skills. And whereas the
impacts diminished future independence and employment opportunities and can create challenges for those with apraxia to become productive members of society, if they are
not resolved and improved . And whereas, public awareness about
childhood apraxia of speech is significant for families with children with neurological disorder and the professionals who support them to achieve the needed services for those
learning to use their own voice. And now therefore I duane crocker, mayor of the city of victoria, do proclaim apraxia
day in victoria, texas, and increased public awareness of childhood apraxia of speech.
>> I've never spoken into one of these before, so mark that
off my bucket list. Anyway, I just want to thank you all for making this possible and highlighting apraxia. I felt
like it's one of those motor speech disorders that are often overlooked, and shout out to our two apraxia lawyers, and my son
david over there. They're the real heroes. Thank you and I look forward to just spreading more awareness about apraxia. So
thank you. >> all right. Then we will move into our second proclamation for national salvation army week.
ms. Hilbrich. >> whereas the national
salvation army's only business in the community of victoria, as everywhere, is still human business undertaken with the joy
of the family of humankind . And whereas through sound, innovative, and professional services the salvation army serves the people of the area with unshakable faith in all, no
matter how desperate the situation, and views all people as people with possibilities. Whereas the salvation army ask on behalf of all residents of our community with neither
salvation nor any other condition prerequisite and not
expecting anything yet nonetheless welcoming community support. Now therefore I, duane crocker, mayor of the city of victoria, texas, proclaim may 12 through 17th 2025 at salvation
army week in victoria texas and do so urge all citizens to salute the steadfast men and women who bind up the
brokenhearted and renew the heart of the community by their quiet service of compassion. >> I don't think captain jones
could make it this evening but we'll make sure he gets a proclamation, and if him another opportunity to come and join us
because I know he always likes to be here and talk about all the good work that they do over there. So join me if you would
in praising salvation army for salvation army week. >>
public service recognition week clinician. Ms. Hilbrich point
>> where is the people of the city of victoria are served every day by public servants at every level of the executive,
legislative and judicial branches of government, these unsung heroes do the work that keeps our community working. And
whereas public employees take not only jobs but booths to perform their jobs to the best of their ability, and whereas
public servants including military, reserve personnel,
police officers, firefighters, corrections officers, doctors, nurses, healthcare professionals and others risk their lives, day
in, each day in service of the people of the city of victoria, and whereas public servants including teachers, social
workers, administrators, computer technicians, laborers and countless other occupations, day in and day out, provide with efficiency and integrity the diverse services demanded of
their government by the people of the city of victoria. And whereas without these public servants at every level ,
continuity would be impossible in the democracy that regularly changes its leaders and elected officials. And now therefore I, duane crocker, mayor of the city of victoria do hereby proclaim
the week of may 4 through 10th 2025 as public service recognition week. All citizens in the city of victoria are
encouraged to recognize the accomplishments and contributions of the hard-working and deserving public employees of the city of victoria, texas.
>> prepared. Thank you. Mayor and council, thank you so much for
taking a minute to recognize the hard-working men and women of our organization. I say it every new employee orientation that
it's impossible for us to enhance livability in our community without them. Every single individual in our
organization plays a significant in making our community a better place to live. Whether it's, of course the public safety
personnel or solid waste truck drivers that pick up trash, or
community appearance division that helps ensure our community looks great, our parks team that helps ensure we have great quality of life with our parks, and the list goes on and on. And
one of the thing that we specifically are trying to be mindful of for this particular week is trying to celebrate our
unsung heroes, because we recognize that we have certain individuals in our organization that are in positions that most
people recognize, because they see them on tv, in movies, where they see them driving around. But we have a lot of individuals
in our organization that do amazing work behind the scenes, and so I'd like to share with you an example of something that
happened last week where we saw a perfect example of what we truly mean by our unsung heroes. And this is related to an issue
that came up last tuesday, april 29th. In the afternoon there was a report that there was an issue at our surface water treatment
plant, which as you know, is our sole source of water, and that there was an issue with the three foot raw water line that
directly feeds into the plant. And without getting into the science of it, the point is that there was an issue with this
line that forced the plant to shut down on tuesday afternoon
and that's obviously a problem, right? Because we need water. Water is the lifeblood of our community. We often joke that
people take it for granted, right? Because it comes out when we turn on our faucets and everything else, but this was a
serious issue and it was an issue that evolved into the late evening hours, to the point to where we began to prepare for a
pretty severe, catastrophic event. We were basically preparing for a scenario where people would wake up that
following morning, on wednesday, april 30th, and there'd be no water coming out of the faucet when it came out. By the
estimations of our surface water treat plant staff, they
calculated that they probably have until 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. To get the water back online, in order for there not to be an
issue. And I happen to be out there for a few hours late into the evening to just do my part in showing support , but I was
very, very impressed with what I saw. Our public works director was out there. Our utility supervisor was out there, and
quite a bit of employees. And I'm going to list them by name shortly, were out there tackling this issue. I was very impressed
and amazed at their collaboration, their teamwork, and how seriously they took it. And sure enough, they were able to get the water plant back online at 4:00 a.m., just at the
nick of time. And nobody -- unless me telling the story now,
people would never realize that we averted a pretty significant
issue in our community, thanks to our unsung heroes of our
surface water treatment plant and our utility division. And so I'd like to very briefly just call them out by name. They're
not here. They're working on the water plant. But from our utilities division, santos ibarra, mark gaitan, lawrence
love, carla door, mark valdes, jeffrey levens, jacob batson.
from our surface water treatment plant, kevin post, curtis moyer, gordon williams, harris wiest, vivian villegas, daniel ortiz,
patricia garcia, douglas elliott, austin and freud,
matthew stutzman, todd a half and eda marie's, and of course
I mentioned kevin gregg already. In these individuals, as I said,
truly exemplified what we are trying to celebrate this week, which is our unsung heroes, and I'll leave you with a point
that was mentioned to me by one of the supervisors that evening, because I couldn't fathom the pressure that those employees might have felt, being in the hole, trying to address this
issue, contemplating that the time was against the clock,
right? There back was against the wall, per se, and one of the supervisors when I alluded to come of this must be a very
high-pressure situation, literally looked me dead in the eye and said, sure, this isn't pressure. We are simply just
trying to make sure that our families have water when they wake up, and made it sound like the most normal thing in the
world that they were out there at 3:00 in the morning, working on this issue. And so those are the types of individuals that
work for an organization. These are the types of individuals
that we want to take a moment this week to thank and to show our appreciation for. And as part of that, like every week of
this, to celebrate public service recognition week, we of
course have the big luncheon at the community center, which I hope you received the invitation and we hope that you can make
it. We have events sprinkled out throughout the week to show our appreciation. And even though this is something that we try
and be more visible of this week, obviously we are grateful for the men and women of our organization 365 days a year.
and so this is just a little snapshot of that. And so again, thank you so much for the proclamation, and I hope that
you and everybody tuning in can help us celebrate this week all the unsung heroes that work for the city of victoria. Thank you.
>> thank you mr. Garza and obviously thanks everyone, for
all of those involved in that incident. When you texted at 3:00 a.m., I was very relieved. Very relieved to get that text.
thanks to all of you. All right. Let's see. Item b 2 d is our
kvb beautification award for may. >> dara leaseback is going to handle this item.
>> good evening mayor and council. Christie is at a conference so I want to thank everybody that came out on
saturday and help with the cleanup. It was a big success, so thanks to everyone that was able to show up and help out
cleaning up several areas around the city of victoria. And with
that, for this month's award, I'm going to let meredith bird, the current chair of keep victoria beautiful, come up and
tell us about the winner this month. Meredith? Welcome, ms.
byrd. >> thank you, and before I get
started on this, I wanted to extend a fax from keep victoria
beautiful to everyone who came out on earth day and supported our fundraiser. It was a rousing success and all of the money
that was raised, we're going to put right back into the
community with undertaking a new public art project to be
determined, and also expanding our beautification grant program that's available to local businesses. So we are just happy to continue with the beautification of victoria. And
so, without any further ado, I'd like to talk about this month's beautification award. We had a few nominations and for
may, our committee recommended a one climate controlled storage
on main street, which -- it's a beautiful little property. Not a
whole lot of green space, but if you're driving down main, before you get in between rio grande and red river, it's a
nice little building that always has a festive seasonal display on the steps. There's usually colorful flowerpots, maybe
little banners and such for whatever season. And ms. Byrne does a fantastic job of working with what she has. Not a lot of
area for big trees, and landscaping, and all of that,
but really it's a really eye-catching little property on there, on main street, and I know she's going to get up and
talk to you about the history of it. It's got a really interesting little history and so tonight I'd like to
congratulate francie burn of a one climate controlled storage on our may beautification award.
>> thank you. >> you're welcome. >> thank you counsel and mayor and council, sorry. Thank you.
my name is francie strain vern and I am very proud of that building. My grandfather built that in 1950. It was the first
dr pepper bottling and distributor in the area, and all
the little stores back in the day. And my grandfather sold the franchise in 1973 but held onto the building. And he leased it
to goodwill. And after that, it was habitat for humanity and several mechanics leased it. And in 2013 I was very happy to open
up climate controlled storage units in there. And it warms my
heart to still be in that building and now my grandchildren run around in their and that's five
generations being in that building. I want to thank all those that nominated and voted for a one climate controlled
storage units, and we are -- it's 24 hour access in their.
it's small. I know all my customers by name. They know me
. It's just a nice -- I like to keep it small and family kind of oriented, and I thank you all again. Family is very happy.
>> great, congratulations. >>
>> all right. And then let's see, item b 2 e, recognition of
the 2024-2025 mayers youth council. That has my name on it so I will take that. You guys see the young men and ladies out
in the audience here. This is my youth council for this year. I felt like a college coach. This is my first recruiting class
that was all mine. Really a great group. They learned a lot.
you'll hear a little bit more but hope you learned a lot through this program, and each of them contributed to the
discussions, and we did a lot of cool stuff so we want to
recognize them and just those that may not know about the you counsel, it's comprised of high school juniors and seniors from
the various high schools within victoria county. I think we had somebody from just about all of them. So just a really great
group and if you'll indulge me, I want to hand out their certificates and letters of recommendation for each of them.
>> all right. Our first student up is amanda budd.
>>
tonight. Next we have -- neither could peyton emerson. We have page fulgham . >>
>> next is mercedes garza. >>
>> read gomez. >>
>> avery herriman. >>
>> elaina longoria. >>
>> lauren montgomery. >>
>> kami mueller. >>
>> michael shaw for. >>
>> and then luke shaffer. >>
>> sierra thomas. >>
>> kaylee sherman. >> >> jc valdes. >>
>> and last but not least, eliana west. >>
update here shortly on other items from counsel.
>> yes. >> so I will jump right into that while we're on the topic. Items from counsel, I have an
item that's obviously related to our mayor's youth council
and I'd ask him to give you guys just a recap of kind of what we did in the program this year. So keisha, take it away.
>> I'll start. Greetings, mayor and council. This year's youth council is the largest that we've had so far. After the
third year of doing this, we also had a group of students who were not part of originally founding the group, which was
really exciting to see the legacy of the original students who started the mayers youth council continue on and grow
beyond the one school that it kind of started out at, so our group this year has been able to do some fun things and learn
thing and they have a short recap for you, and I'll start with luke shaw for, our president.
>> so the mission of the mayor's youth council is to
promote civic engagement among youth. The mayor's youth council provides high school students with opportunities to learn about city government, develop leadership skills, and
bring awareness to issues important to victoria's youth.
the nyc is made up of junior and senior high school students representing the youth population of the area and is
open to students from the isd, st. Joseph eighth academy,
industrial isd, bloomington isd and other homeschool students.
>> hi, everyone. Good evening. My name is sierra thomas and I am the 2024-2025 president-elect. So the
eligibility requirement to be a part of the mayor's youth
council is students must be a junior or senior in high school , commit to serving for one school year, which starts in the
beginning of august to may, submit a completed application, maintain a 2.5 gpa or higher, attend orientation, attend and actively participate in monthly meetings, and also participate
in many community service projects.
>> the 2024-2025 mayor's youth council has 16 students and nine
are seniors, seven are juniors and they're all from four
different schools. >> we've generally met twice a
month on tuesdays since august. At our meetings we have learned
a lot about the city from the different departments. We also
start each meeting watching the rundown, so we have followed what the city council does. >> the two service projects
we've done this year is we were able to volunteer at a hospice and we did volunteering for keep victoria beautiful.
>> we also took two field trips to fire station number one,
where we explored the fire trucks and got to learn about the cpr basic training, and also to the public safety
headquarters.
>> we worked on drafting a public policy and we learned
public policies have a wide purpose and objective, and after those are established and you can start drafting the policy. >> in our discussion of the public art policy, we discussed
a lot of details, but most specifically focused a lot of
discussion on administrative responsibilities of departments
responsible for implementing the policy. Public notice requirements, and how to gain public participation.
>> we want to thank you for the opportunity, especially to
keisha smith for coordinating our meetings, and to mayor duane crocker for hosting the mayor's youth council , part of last
year and all of this year. Thank you. >>
enjoyed it and I, too, want to thank keisha for all of her work
that she's done. And for those of you that are juniors, hopefully we'll see you back next year. And good luck on
finals, guys. >> I want to say to anyone listening or watching that we are going to hopefully open up
applications in the next few weeks for next year's youth council. They're not due until august that way students have
time to get recommendation letters and make sure it fits in their schedule. But for now we're going to leave because I
did promise this group we would go to green cow after this, so we have to go. >> doto go 2
>> know, we have executive session. >> great job, y'all. >> all right. >>
I believe we may have another item from counsel, ms. Scott? >> yes. This is really as much a public service, public
information, as anything, but I've become aware that there is a bat population in eagle creek and some of the bats are rabbit.
they do have rabies. They can be seen flying on ashland creek early in the morning, but there have been at least two instances
I'm aware of where people have come in contact with the rabid
that's and you know what happens as a result of that.
they get in touch with animal control, get in touch with public health, end up taking the rabies shots. Their pets also
quite often have two be treated in various ways. So why just
wanted to make the public aware of it, because that is probably the biggest offense that any of us could have, is to be aware
that there are that's in the area that have rabies, and for those not as familiar with the city and the location, eagle
creek is a subdivision on the east side of town and it is immediately adjacent to fleetwood, to hamlet, to hamlet
lace, cimmaron is in the area, tangerine is in the area, so a lot of residential areas. Because of course the bats
don't stay in one subdivision. So I wanted to make the public aware. The biggest thing is to keep your distance if you see an
animal on the ground. Don't go investigate it. Contact animal control. But just be aware not to have contact yourself.
>> great. Thank you. And I think I saw -- >> he's here, I think he was here .
>> I may have stolen his thunder. Thank you for coming. >> certainly want to give you the opportunity to address citizens on this issue. >> I appreciate it, mayor and
council. I'm glad to be here. I do appreciate her need for knowledge and I just wanted to explain that texas is home -- I
sent her a whole bunch of information. She probably knows more about rabies in bats now than she ever wanted to. We 233
different species of bats. They're the most populous mammal, actually in the world, and we have the three largest colonies in the world are in texas. So keenly aware of bats.
it's where all rabies investigation started, it was actually in texas, in austin and san antonio was the main equitable knowledge of radio so, so far this year we've had two
positive bats and two positive skunks. We just had a positive skunk at the animal control facility and again, this is a
prime opportunity to explain to people that by state law, your cats and dogs and ferrets four months of age or older have to
be vaccinated for rabies. If you remember back in 2023, we had an outbreak of skunk rabies, first time in about 12 years we've
had skunk rabies in our county, and we were actually mentioned, as I put in the email, in the 2023 review of the zoonoses
control, victoria county animal services, victoria county health and zoonoses control's reaction to that actually kept able safe.
it was a model of exactly what we should've done through public education, lots of press releases by me , and public
health, and just sharing information. It's surprising that we have clinics, they don't deal with rabies all the time so if somebody comes in saying they got bit by something
maybe rabid, we are the person they call. Just again, I'm just here if you guys need the information on rabies. We
obviously can't remove the whole bat colony. Generally about 10% of bats tested in the u.s. Come back positive for rabies. When I was in austin we had one year where 52% of what
tested were positive. Williamson county and travis county lead the nation in rabies, so be glad you're down here. We don't
have it as bad. But again, as the councilmember said, we don't ever want to touch wildlife if we see it on the
ground. If you go to my facebook page, there is a video of the skunk that was falling over, tipping over as it was walking
by our facility. That's a classic sign of out during the day, an and all that should only be out during dusk and dawn, and
peculiar behavior such as falling over, with its tail down instead of tail up, unusual behavior. Any bat that you see
down shouldn't be touched. If your dog handles it or whatever, this lady that we're talking about, this person got
vaccinated. Her daughter had to get vaccinated and that starts a
whole chain of events within the state and the city and the county when somebody is exposed to rabies. So again, everything
was done very well this time. The reports were done accurately and appropriately and she did seek the necessary medical thing
that she did. Again, I'm available if any of you want any information. Feel free to reach out to me anytime and I'm
always happy to meet you and talk about whatever concern you have with animals. >> great, thank you, appreciate
you being here and thank you, ms. Scott, for bringing that to the public's attention. Are there any other items from
counsel this evening? All right. With that, then we will move
into citizens communications. I have four cards here and we'll start with michael bondurant. Welcome mr. Vander a.
>> good evening counsel, mayor, I enjoyed the cinco de mayo this
weekend the city of victoria put together. Appreciate it and
congratulations on being mayor. You still have your job, so that's good, you know. And anyway, they're laying concrete
at 2204 east north street. I'd like to thank rick madrid and
staff for overseeing it with the city of victoria. I've been complaining about potholes for 6 years and it's finally been
fixed, and I appreciate, and the personal injury attorneys ,
he's going high-level and doing the concrete, so I appreciate with the personal injury lawyer is doing for the trailer park.
and also there's trailer 29. It's all dilapidated . I don't
know if they could call it a public nuisance and stuff, but the roof is falling apart. There's about 14 broke windows,
broke doors, and it's been like this for about three years, and the personal injury lawyer hasn't done anything. If a
tenant lived like that, you would be evicted, more than likely. And the law should apply for the personal injury attorney
who owns the trailer park, not just the tenants. If he's going to evict you, if you had something wrong with your
trailer park, there should be some repercussions from the city of vick soria, and back in 2010 a gangster came and they killed
someone in that trailer house. It was shot three times. He got 99 years and the other one that wasn't the trigger man got 10
years. No, he got 20 years because he didn't use the weapon. And whenever you leave trailer houses dilapidated and
you turn a blind eye and don't fix it up, you can expect things
like that to happen. Trailers five, 10, 16, 29 and 32 were
condemned about three years ago but they gave them a chance on 29 and 32 because they did fix them up but they're not up to
par and not up to code, and I would like someone to tell the personal injury lawyer about it, and stuff, and you know, also
I'd like to thank the s.w.a.t. Team on the drug bust in the place where they got busted. They added some more cameras and
stuff, so when you're the police, they're looking at you
through the camera and a tenant said there was three shots on three separate days of the trailer park. And I would like
the personal injury lawyer to do background checks on the people,
because there is a lot of sketchy people and I'd like to thank everyone, the city of victoria, for helping, both of
the city managers before and jesus and other ones, thanks and
have a good one, appreciate it. >> next I have mr. Hurley fisk. Welcome back, mr. Fisk. Always
good to see you. >> everyone here? A couple things, first I'd like to congratulate the city as a whole
on the results of the election on the community center. And of
course you getting reelected, the friends of the library
begins our three time a year book sale on sunday. Sunday
it's for members only but it only costs $10 to join, to be a member. That's from 10:00 -- I'm sorry, from noon until
2:00. The funds that we raise during the library book sale
goes into supporting programs at the library, including my favorite program, which is the 1000 books before kindergarten.
we are trying to get parents to read to their children more, to
help with the whole problem of literacy in victoria, which
actually is an endemic problem throughout the country. Also on behalf of theater victoria, I'm sure the mayor would be pleased
to audition for -- >> that sounds like a disaster.
>> thursday, may 22nd, is the auditions, the actual play dates of the theater itself, july 25th through the 27th and july 31st
to august 3rd. But we encourage people to come out to the
library book sale and to the auditions . Thank you.
>> thank you, mr. Fisk. Next card I have is mr. James
riordan. Good evening, mr. Weirton. Good to see you.
>> thank you, good evening mayor and members of council. This is just an update on behalf of victoria preservation. We've
been working probably over the course of the last year to try to save anchor lumberyard, which was at risk after the developer
of the new dollar general decided to buy that property. So we came to you early. We came to the city and we came to the
developer, and I guess the bottom line is we were able to
save that building. And in the meantime, we got new development out there. We got a dg market. We got fresh meat and produce on
the south side of victoria, which was a big win, because we haven't had that in decades. And the bigger thing for us at
preservation was the structure was saved, and thanks to your
leadership , and especially to councilwoman scott, who helped us with this project. Just a big kudos and thanks. Our
development director julie fulgham and our building official rick madrid were instrumental in doing things to make that possible, because we went out of our comfort zone to
save a building that actually sits in the right of way. But I think it's a win for the city. Preservation is important in
victoria. We have so many historic structures and the gives us a sense of place to our community when we save these
structures and they're repurposed. Because if we lost the anchor building, we have a piece of concrete. Now we've got a building that's going to be restored by a private
investor and re-utilized, so we're grateful for that and just want to say to you all, let's keep up the forward
progress on preservation victoria. There's going to be a lot of opportunities, I can tell you right now. There is interest
from outside the city in doing some things with historic
holdings in victoria, so I just ask that you all keep an open mind. Keep that idea of preservation and how do we
repurpose all these structures that we have that are so significant to our community? And I'm just grateful to the
development office and to you all for making that happen. >> thank you mr. Weirton. >> I want to recognize jahnke sales and bill murphy, who worked with preservation and
were instrumental in helping us move forward. >> thank you, appreciate the work. Than my last card is mr.
john griffin. Welcome mr. Griffin.
>> thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. I echo james weirton and want to thank you and the city staff for all of the hard
work in seeing what was dick's west end and it's run is a
dollar store and end up as the most beautiful dollar general store in the world. Thank you for the partnership and working
with vpi and the victoria county historical commission, of which I am a member, because that project, albeit one against long
odds, people wouldn't have that this would've happened but we've saved a beautiful architectural specimen from the
son of jules left lynn, kyle left lynn, and as you know, our old county jail is also a kyle left lynn structure that we are
working to make sure is not demolished and is repurposed, so thank you for all of that. Not every project comes to fruition
but thanks to the hard work of the people in this room and others who worked behind the scenes, it is now a project
everyone in this community can be proud of. Last, I know I'm not the only one to feel this or sense this and you saw this a
little bit in our mayor's reaction to this but the passing
of robbie birch last night is waiting a lot of us down in this
community. It was a real shock since he was such an
irrepressible, undeniable force of nature with a positive
attitude. I will -- I got goosebumps now, missing those
phone calls that we would get from him and his creative energy per go it's a real shock. He leaves us, though, with a legacy
of kindness, positive thinking, and warm personality. But the
one that stands out to me this afternoon is his ability to say
yes to projects that improve our community. I made a lot of asks
of robbie in his life and he never said no. If we were working on a project, he was there to do it. And for all of
us who will enjoy the 50th bloch festival this year, his family
again is a major supporter of that effort. So if I can take anything from what robbie's legacy leaves, it's the ability
to say yes when something good is happening. Thank you mr. Mayor. >> thank you, john. All right. I think that will close out, then, citizens communication, and we
will go to item c 1 point this is item with public hearing.
>> item c 1 is in ordinance amending chapter 24 of the city
code for fire department fees. This item is on first reading. >> no presentation tonight but good evening, mayor and council.
this item is just reverting one of the few changes that were
made, I believe back in february or march, related to the fire department. Had a few, crowd manager on site that had been
adjusted to $75 an hour, which we are putting back to the
original rate to keep it more in line with what the police department is charging for related fees. So that's all
that this item is tonight. >> okay. Any questions? No? All right. Thank you very much. So with that, then I will open the
public hearing on item c 1. If there's anyone that it
addresses the council please come forward at this time. See none, I will close the public hearing and entertain any
motions with respect to item c 1. >> motion to approve. >> I second.
>> I've got a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? All in favor say aye? Any opposed? Item c 1 passes. Item
d, we'll move to the consent agenda. >> item d one is adoption and minutes of the regular meeting, item d 2 is the purchase of a 2024 ford f5 50 skeeter flatbed
brush truck from emergency group llc in the amount of $160,348,
item d 3 is a resolution approving a contract extension with agc and incorporated for owners representation in the public safety had orders project. Item d 4 is a
resolution approving a professional services agreement with armco industries for roofing and waterproofing
consulting services in relation to the roof of the victoria public library building in the amount of $58,000 and item d 5
is a resolution approving the purchase of furniture for the public safety headquarters from spencer and company in an amount
not to exceed $799,742 point >> thank ms. Hilbrich . Is there any motions with respect to the consent agenda?
>> I'm if we adopt the consent agenda. >> second. >> I've got a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Consent agenda
passes. All right, moving then to item d 1 point >> item d 1 is a resolution approving one freightliner m
2106 plus from hydropower track commercial 25 yard rear load truck using tips, the interlocal purchasing system contract
number 23 0802 in the amount of $266,887. >> welcome back mr. Lee sec. Good evening again.
>> so I've got a quick presentation and I'm going to cover both purchases with one, if counsel is okay with that. So
we talked back when I gave my annual report about how long it takes to get trucks and the need to put in purchase orders early
, in order to get in line, to get trucks in a reasonable time. And so what we are looking to replace is we have three
automated trucks that are 2016 models and we have a rear load truck that is a 2007 model. So it's an 18-year-old truck. Now
I'm going to talk a little bit about a replacement on trucks. So we do seven years for automated trucks normally. Now
if you'll remember, when I talked I said that we've pushed that out to nine years. That was okay when I could get a truck in
four months. Now, if we wait until october, it could be a
year, a year and a half, because we are getting in line with all the other cities that are approving trucks in october, as
well. So that's one reason. We did 10 years, normally on a rear loader. Why the difference? Well an automated truck has a lot of
moving parts. A rear loader really has just the packing late in the back. It doesn't have the arm and the packing blade,
and everything else. So those trucks have a lot less wear and tear. We use them to pick up brush and so the wear and tear
is quite a bit less. So again, we haven't had to replace those, that truck like I said he's 18 years old but we've
got a decision to make. Do I put a new transmission in a truck that's 18 years old or buy a new truck? And common sense says
we need to get a new truck. So estimated delivery time, that's if I order now or put in a po now. I would not pay for these
trucks until the new budget is approved by counsel, which would be after october 1st. But if I put in the pos now I would
receive these trucks by the end of the year, for the most part. We are looking to automate trucks 8 to 10 months, rear
loader 7 to 9 months. That's depending on when I get the po over to them so that we get in line. If I waited until october
we would probably be adding 4 to 6 months to those numbers. And then I'll answer any westerns. >> any questions?
>> what do we do with the old trucks? >> the old trucks, so two of the automated trucks, I have rubbed
every part that I can get off of them. They will be sold as scrap. The others will be traded in. The rear loader will be
sold. Someone will purchase it and they can put a new transmission in it that I'm not going to.
>> thank you. >> all right. Any other questions? All right. So essentially we are just committing to budget these in our next budget cycle but we
want to go ahead and get them on order instead of waiting a year and a half. >> we would issue the po. Roger
would issue the po from fleet so what it would do is put us in line for construction of these trucks. I would not receive
them, nor would I pay for them until after october 1 when we start the new budget year. >> okay. Great. All right. Are
there any motions with respect to item d 1? >> motion to approve item e 1 point
>> I've got a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? All in favor say aye and then ms. Hilbrich if you'll call
item d 2. >> a resolution approving the
purchase of three automated trucks, 2026 maxell r 64 with the heil 28 yard python body from vanguard truck center using
the tips in our local purchasing system contract number 2040901 in the amount of $1,406,947.27. >> thank you. Are there any motions on that or e 2 .
>> motion to approve item e 2. >> second. >> got a motion at a second. Any discussion on item e 2. All in
favor say aye. Any opposed? E 2 passes. All right. Jumping down to section f, city manager's report. Mr. Garza, I believe you
have a presentation for us. >> I do. This one probably will be 30 minutes. But it's an important topic. And so I will
-- I am providing an date on behalf of the compensation and
benefits committee, which of course includes several of your colleagues and I will introduce them, I guess, formally here in
a couple of slides, and they may want to interject at that time with any comments regarding this effort but this was an effort
that of course began never, because it's not -- there you
go. Did you move it? Okay. All right. This effort began at the
conclusion of our budget development process last summer, leading into fall, for context you may recall that last year we
had a very robust conversation about just compensation and benefits, which of course led to us or myself making a proposal
that ultimately evolved over time and it ended up changing.
and so we thought, and under the mayor's guidance and leadership, that it would be a great idea to involve counsel
earlier in the process, at least some members of council earlier in the process, to help guide that a little better than we
normally do. Of course normally the pay program recommendation is normally something that myself along with staff develop
basically almost all on our own, and by the time we expose all of counsel, it's basically already been set up. And so, this
committee has been meeting with the purpose of basically establishing a recommendation that further enhances our pay
program to provide some immediate relief because of the
problem statement that we shared last year which to some extent continues today and I will share some figures with you
highlighting that, while at the same time and probably more importantly, being mindful about the long-term financial sustainability of the city, because at the end of the day we
don't want to commit to something that of course might put us in a bind in the future. And as I alluded to, the
committee is made up of three councilmembers, councilmember
delagarza, loffgren and butler. Of course, myself, garcia and
our hr director. At this moment I will turn it over to any one of them if they want to say a few words.
>> I was an employee of the city for 31 years and since then a city councilman for several years. I want to say this is the
most robust and to me very elegant consultation plan. I
think the previous administration didn't do any
justice or any favors for the police department and fire department. This plan does. We spent a lot of time, a lot of
hours, and I think jesus garza, the city manager, and gilbert reyna, the finance officer, that deserve a lot of credit for
this, and I want to thank april butler and mark loffgren for all
their input on this. I think we are headed finally in the right direction, after years of neglect.
>> you knew I'd have something to say, and I want to express my sincere appreciation to mayor crocker for appointing me to
serve on the compensation subcommittee. I believe it's been a truly collaborative effort between those of us on council and the city staff . I also think that we have all gone
into it with the goal of aligning employee compensation with market values. The process has been thoughtful. It's been
data-driven and it's been focused on long-term impact. I
believe that the presentation today will reflect that
diligence, that engagement, and that investment that this
committee has brought to the table, and I fully support the presentation that mr. Garza is about to give, and that I hope
that today's discussion sets a strong accident for how future
subcommittees might be useful in situations such as this. >> thank you. >> I have said -- sat in the
audience since 2013, and I've been up here for a few years, and there has never been a subcommittee of councilmembers
on the topic. That's how important we feel this topic is. I think it's important. It's kind of ironic this is public
service recognition week or month, when we wouldn't have a
great city without all the employees. We took this very seriously and we spent a lot of time on it, and we are not done,
by the way. We expect to meet or often and discuss other issues. And I hope you appreciate all the time and energy that was put
into this. We have more meetings than city council meetings. A
lot more than city council meetings. We met almost every monday for a long period of time and I think it's a good plan. I
think you'll like it. >> let me just chime in, thanks to each of you for -- I know it was a lot of time. I know it was
a lot of work. I know there were some hills and valleys, as there always are in these things, and obviously thanks to mr. Garza
and mr. Reyna and ms. Campos as well, I know there's a lot of work went into this and you guys have my appreciation for doing
the job that you were asked to do, and mr. Garza, with that,
I'll let you get on with the recommendations. >> all right. Please feel free to interject at any point with
questions. Obviously it's important that we all get a good understanding of what -- excuse me, what we are recommending. I
blame allergies for this. I apologize. So I already alluded to this but I'll reiterate that some of the key goals of the
committee, which of course is to attract and retain high quality employees, strengthen employee satisfaction, which always are
correlated and is correlated to the continuity of essential city services. All of these goals are in spite of some recent attempts
and many of you have seen me and know that I'm always thinking
about trying to provide some history and some context,
because I think it's important. Because it's always been a priority for us to focus as much as we can on our employees. So
this is just a really quick recap on what we've been able to do over our last five years. I'm not going to go into major
detail with it but you may recall from last year's presentations that we did undertake a study in 2020 that
utilized 2019 data pre-pandemic. That's key, pre-pandemic data
that basically outlined the recommendations that we proposed
over several years beginning with fiscal year 2021 so you'll see that in fiscal year '21 we implemented a new pd and fire
staff program. That was in response to that study that we conducted at 2020, which did suggest that we were behind
market but not significantly and so we made those adjustments --
>>
allergies -- to give you a sense of what the investments have
been in a five-year period. It will help highlighting to councilmember garza's point, what we have been able to do in
the last five years compared to what we are proposing. In any case, we obviously made some adjustments in fiscal year 2021
of the pay recommendations. We followed back up in fiscal year 2022 and so on and so forth. You can see by the time we get to
fiscal year 25 where we are now, we are already surpassing 25 million in impact we are able to invest in employees over the
last five-year period. I will remind you for fiscal year 2025 specifically, the 846 dollar budget impact was a net impact
but not the true gross impact of the program because of imposed
impositions. We froze 10 positions in 2025 in order to help afford the roughly $1.4 million program. And so, in
actuality, the benefit we have been able to offer employees exceeds the 5.2 million once you look at it from a growth
standpoint. But nonetheless, keep that in mind. Over the last five years it has been over $5 million. And we have tried to do
everything we can through the budget development process to
invest in our employees. Councilmember garza mentioned
specifically police and fire. We did and we have since fiscal
year 2021 honored the commitment of the staff commitments what
rolled out of fiscal year 2021. That was one of the biggest feedbacks and criticisms that I heard in 2020. There was
inconsistency when the city would afford and grant these
increases. We have done so since fiscal year 2021. That is a little bit of background of what we invested over the past few
years. In spite of that we still have some challenges. This gives you a snapshot of the biggest challenges that exists within
our organization which are police, fire and public works. And of course, we have been very transparent with those departments being the ones that have the greatest challenge. So,
vacancy, historical data. As of today we do have roughly 24 vacancies with pd. And we have 16 or 17 vacancies in public
works. Thankfully, we have zero vacancies in fire right now thanks to some creative reshuffling of the
organizational structure in government leadership . But that
is still a challenge for us. So, these three departments continue to be a challenge for us. That was something the committee kept
in mind moving forward throughout the process. Another -- I see councilmember lofgren is smart because of the element
of this, but we know from the exit interviews when we lose
employees we rate low in the salaries and benefits item on
the questionnaire on the exit interview. Very rarely is it an
issue with the organization. As you can see we always rate above four stars and supervisor rating or department rating. You can
see we obviously fall below three stars in the salaries and
benefits which, of course, tells us something, right? -- white people leaving our organization. People are still marking the
stars. When we share the graph with the presentation yesterday , every one of those had five stars. Thank you, dino, for
adjusting and just showing the 2.7 stars mark. I took a ruler
and measured it. That was three fourths of a star on that third
star. So, again, that was one of the driving forces of the work that the committee undertook. One of the things that was also
different about this process was, it wasn't just about data.
obviously, that was the foundation of it. There was more to it. There were some methodology of the pay program,
the direction from the committee, and what we mean by that is policy direction to focus on police, fire and public
works because the data was telling us that's where we have the biggest challenge, right? There was definitely an emphasis
on trying to do a little bit more in those areas. That's an example of one of several policies that came from the
committee. We updated the wage analysis to make sure it was reflective of the cost of living adjustment compared to what we
were use allies -- utilizing last year. One of the great suggestions that came out of the committee specifically, councilman butler, was this idea to overlay cost-of-living
credential. Last year we were talking about the data. We did not take into account what is the cost living in victoria
compared to other communities? Because there is a difference. Often times it is easy to think about, well, the city of
victoria does not pay as much as new braunfels as an example, but
the cost of living is greater in new braunfels. We have not really adjusted the data to account for the difference until
this idea came forward through this committee work. So, we did do that. We adjusted the data to reflect that. And you may recall
that last year we kept verbalizing this goal of trying
to reach 90% of market data. But once we ran the cost differential, it resulted in 100% of market when adjusted for
cost of living in victoria. It further strengthened in providing some backing to the figure that was the goal in this
process. So, in any case, that is one example of that. We also wanted to be mindful of tenure. That was another one of those
feedbacks we have gotten over the years from employees across the organization about this issue or this scenario where you
have somebody in a position where you have multiple people in the same position making the same amount of money regardless
of how long they have been with the organization. I will get to that when I get to the general slides, but that was part of the
methodology. As I alluded to, just being mindful of our finances. In the past, the city -- these are some examples of
tools the city has utilized in order to put together a paid
program. For example, in the past the city has undertaking
border increases. We did that for fiscal year 2025 were everyone received 3% across-the-board. It has been a while since we done this. In the past, the city has done
pay-for-performance as a tool to make a recommendation for pay
program. We have also utilized market adjustments alignment when we feel that positions are getting too far away. We will
make adjustments based off solely the market. We have done lump sum or stipends in the past as part of just the city's
effort to try and put together a paid program. This is important
because what we are basically recommending for fiscal year 2026 includes an element of market adjustment while at the
same time a lump sum or stipend option. The plan for fiscal year
2026 that I will be presenting to you does not include
across-the-board increases and does not include pay-for-performance. Those are things we can certainly contemplate as part of putting together fiscal year 2027 and
beyond. For purposes of fiscal year 2026 the focus was on market adjustment and lump sum or stipends. I will explain it
further in a second. To help this presentation flow in as smooth and easy fashion as I would like it to, we are
providing how we divide the information in these categories because it makes sense because of the different impact across these different subgroups. It matches the policy directions
that focus on police, fire and public works. I will give you an example with solid waste. Often times, our challenge has nothing
to do with another city but has to do with private-sector competition like is the case with solid waste. And of course
I will summarize general population. One of the things that was also different about how we tried to approach this was, let's look at not just the pay, but let's look at other
elements that impact pay moving forward. So, for example, the
second item on this table shows there is concern within the
police department that there are too many steps in the step program that existed. And sure enough, there was basically a
dozen steps in the step program. If every step is supposed to be two years, it was over 20 years it would take a police officer
to sort of maxed out with their pay. So, the common sort of sentiment I would receive from pd was, you know, I am basically
retirement eligible after 20 years and I am still not maxed out. Right? And so, that was one thing that we attempted to
address with the structure of the step. So, again, it wasn't
looking at what is the starting pay for police or what is the starting pay for different positions, but look at the
structure of the step itself. And, it's not moving on me. Nothing. Okay. So, this is basically the recommended step
program for police. It shows six steps. So, again, in the design
of the step we are addressing several concerns. We are addressing the concern that the previous step program or
existing step program had way too many steps. We are also addressing and cleaning up the way we illustrate the valley of
the steps. So, the previous step, for example, did not include in the document itself any specific guidance on what
are the years of service addressed to these steps which created some confusion about which step an officer felt they
ought to be in. Right? So, we tried to clean that up through how we present information. You will see we also just structured
it differently so it is easier on the eyes from left to right to show progression throughout somebody's career. And so, I
will briefly highlight that the police officer position is proposed to go up by 14%. So, that's what gets it up to the
$60,000 starting salary. It was important for the police chief to hit $60,000 minimum in order to remain competitive as much as
possible in the region. I mentioned earlier trying to use
data to back up where we were investing our dollars. The data
certainly backed up where we were losing the majority of our officers was the senior police officer detective ranks. Those
positions went up by 17% to try to tackle that. So, this is an
example of utilizing data as well as policy direction to be able to put money where we think it could make a difference with
the turnover and recruitment issues that exist with pd. I
won't walk you through every single one of these. Just know that as part of laying this out, we also cleaned up any potential
overlap that might be an issue. For example, you will see as a senior police officer you will max out at $75,000 but when you
promote to sergeant it jumps up to 81. So, it alleviates any possible compression throughout the promotional process of
anybody in the police department. So, again, it
wasn't just about trying to develop recommendations for starting pay, but it was trying to develop a step that made
sense with less confusing -- it was easier to read and follow
for anyone involved and impacted. Yes ma'am?
>> I don't completely understand the step program. When you are promoted from one position to the next on the step
chart, do you go back to 0 to 2 years in the position?
>> correct. It is four years in position. I will explain that a little further in a couple of slides. But again, feel free to
stop and ask questions whenever you can or if you want. Obviously, you can do whatever you can't or want. Anyways,
that's an example of pd. Again, I don't want to over saturate you with data or numbers. But I will summarize it as follows.
so, with the augmentation we are putting forward with pd and the step plan for pd it is roughly 128 employees that will be
impacted by this, the total cost of that is roughly $1.4 million.
and this will basically go into effect october first, right? It's going to be included as part of the budget. One of the
things we are also clarifying with this move is clarifying to
your point, councilman scott, it is the time and position that is the metric we are using to determine when somebody is in
their respective step. We are also clarifying when they do that milestone that it occurs after the anniversary date.
because we have also been inconsistent with how we go
about implementing and applying the step. This clarifies that an officer will receive the 3% pay bump after their anniversary
date. It makes it less confusing because obviously they know when their anniversary date is. Again, we are cleaning up a
variety of different things. One of the other things that I forgot to mention from this is we also decreased the value of
the steps for ranked positions. Part of the thought process behind this was to emphasize on the lower ranked positions
which, in this case, would be police officer, senior police officer. Getting with sergeant and above the value of those
steps is only 2%. Historically, the value has been 3% for all ranks. That we left it at 3% for police officer and senior police
officer and then adjusted it for the further ranked positions to 2%. So, with fire, I'm going to move on to fire. Very similar in
terms of issues being behind or not being competitive with pay, I should say. On the fireside their unique concern that was
specific to fire was between fire and ems. You may recall
that the ems vision within fire was something that was created
during the pandemic as a way to try to alleviate the pressure that the fire department was feeling at the time due to the
pandemic. It had been a very, very long time since the city had undertaken structure of the fire department that delineated
the division of ems and one of fire fighting. It had been a truly combined department for decades by that time frame. It
had been a long time. And so, part of what was going on with
the fire department is these growing pains as a department evolves and shifts to having these two divisions once again.
as part of developing the step for the fire department, again, it wasn't about looking at starting pay or whatever, it was
how do we develop a step structure that addresses other concerns? So, one way to do that was to create multiple step
structures. So, this step structure is reflective of what the track would look like for a firefighter only. Which, again,
is also six steps. It clearly defines the services associated with each step . So on and so forth. In this particular case,
lieutenants and above are also at the super step. So, we have
kept the lower positions at 3% and the ranked positions at 2%. To help alleviate some of the confusion that existed between
firefighter and ems, we developed an ems track centric step to again address those issues that existed. So, I
mentioned earlier that the fire department is fully staffed. A big reason the fire department is fully staffed is because now
we do have emt only's we are hiring into the fire department. When the ems division was created a few years ago we were
basically just hiring paramedics. That is the paramedic crew leader position. So now, we have added the
ability to hire emts. So, that is why the fire department is full of staff currently. But this presents an opportunity to
better delineate a progression plan for anyone who wants a career in the ems track. So this kind of step planning achieves
that. If you are wondering , you know, why is there a column, you
know, addressing over time, it's because the shift schedules are completely different between fire and paramedics. And that also further validated the idea of
having to completely different steps -- step documents for
each. For example, on any traditional model for the fire department side they are working 2900 hours and on the ems track
because the schedule is different they are working with 2100 . And so, it is a different schedule altogether. Because
it's a schedule of the ems that's different it comes with a built-in guaranteed overtime element to it. That's why it
was important for us to convey it in a way that would tell somebody that gets hired if you just work your base schedule, it
contemplates overtime. That's why it's reflective of that.
and well, just to recap the fire, 100 23 employees impacted,
very similar, it compares them to the police department and the cost impact for this change for the fire department is $1.3
million, very similar in terms of size and cost of the level of investment we are recommending for police and fire. And before
I move on, any questions on the fire? I know I am throwing a lot at you! >> not a question, but a
comment. For those listening and not as familiar as some of us that have been living and breathing it, it would be
beneficial to maybe clarify that the 3% and 2% is just the step.
there is a market adjustment for overall pay as well that varies depending on the years in service or entry-level --
>> yes thank you, thank you for the reminder, councilman butler. Similar to the police department we also looked at the data to
try to figure out which positions within the fire department are the ones we are losing the most. And that data
looked completely different than the police department. Where we
are losing the majority of folks on the fireside is in the ranked positions. It's the engineer position. It's the lieutenant
position. It's the captive position. So, while we did adjust starting pay for firefighter , and that did get
adjusted at roughly 10%, there were pretty significant increases to the ranked positions to the tune of over
20%. And that was backed up by not only the independent data
from the study but also backed up by what we were seeing with losing folks. We were literally losing lieutenants and captains
that were literally leaving us to be a front-line firefighter
in a different department to make more money because that's how far behind we were with what we were paying lieutenants and
captains for example. And of course, it helped, you know, having councilmember delagarza because he knows the history associated with the fire department. And he and others
have been able to validate the sentiment, you know, over the years the city would focus market adjustments on the fire
department starting pay, but never equally invested in the
ranked positions. So you multiply that over 10 or 15 years and you ended up with major compression issues in the
fire department because they have not been addressed. It seemed severe or drastic that what we are recommending is
paved for ranked positions, that's reflective of how far behind we, ourselves were with making up those adjustments and
ranked positions. And again, the data back it up through not only
the data looking at what other cities that we compare ourselves to paid but also the people that we were losing and repeating. We
were losing lieutenants and captains that were leaving our department to go be a firefighter somewhere else,
right? They are literally going to an environment where they have lost rank because they were making more as a front-line
firefighter than they would as a leader in our infrastructure.
and so, this addresses that. So, thank you for the reminder ,
councilman butler. On the ems side, the adjustment is more minimal. It's in the single digits. One of the things we
learned through the processes we need to recalibrate and adjust our paramedic certification program to more closely align
with the individuals that are working in ambulance every
single hour they are on shift which, of course, are the folks on the ems track. While the percentage increases on the ems
track are not significant as they are on the firefighter side we are currently working on a new certification program that
would help create that better balance and hopefully, a certification program that financially rewards to a greater degree folks that are on this track. Okay. So, any other
questions on police and fire? Those are obviously big ones.
okay. So, moving on to public works, what are there specific issues? Was -- again, every department has issues with, you
know, having challenges with turnover, recruitment, etc., every department has unique things. In the public works department that was a very unique issue where there was
lack of clarity around progression , which was very
confusing, kind of handled at an ad hoc basis. On top of trying to invest on positions where we are seeing the greatest turnover
in public works, we also took advantage of the opportunity to help clarify the lack of clear progression with public works.
so, this gives you an example of what the ultimate regulation and the result of that was, that was very clear for anybody that
starts within streets, traffic utilities what the potential progression was with our organization. The data backed up and showed with public works where we were losing the more
people where we are struggling the most is in the maintenance worker vision and utility crew leader positions. So, the
maintenance worker position was adjusted 7%, the utility crew leader position was adjusted 13%. Most of the vacancies within public works are in the utility division so, hence, the
heavier investment in the utility crew leader position. But again, what are the positive outcomes of what we put together
is very clear progression path. There is roughly 125 employees
in its impact that are impacted by what we are proposing for public works to the tune of about $400,000. And then, I
mentioned the uniqueness of solid waste or environmental
services division where the competition isn't a city. It
wouldn't have come up in any of the data analysis we conducted because we don't lose these folks to other cities. We lose
them to waste management, public, white trash -- what we did is something with this group. We used a completely
different data set and a completely different methodology on how to be competitive with privet sector companies in our
region. It's the recommendation for solid waste was to basically
increase the starting pay from a little over $16-$19. If you are thinking, that's not as much as these, what we have going for
ourselves is the total benefits package that we offer. Most of the private sector companies, while they made -- may pay more
per hour, don't offer retirement, don't offer health benefits to the extent we do. So even though we are proposing to
be at the $19 per hour, there are all these other benefits that come with being an employee of the city of victoria that we
think will make a difference. It has already made a difference in this particular department. So, if you are wondering, basely
this equates to a 10 or 15% pay increase to the drivers within solid waste. And that is the cost impact of roughly $24,000.
and then we get to everybody else. And what we refer to as
part of a conversation general population. As a refresher , our
recommendation for the general population was based off the data and the study that we alluded to, also looking at this
factor. The way we captivated the tenure factor was basically multiplying 1.5% of movement into the pay range or into the hourly rate to go into effect every two years of service.
almost how we calculated that -- again, to try to create separation, there's areas where you have individuals in the same
position but you at different years of service -- again, trying to alleviate some of that compression even in that
scenario. And so, that's basically what we did. We put a formula together, and wesley deserves a lot of credit for
this. He took a lot of the data that came from our third-party consultant and developed his own excel document and created his
own formulas. So, wesley deserves a lot of credit for what the data put out for recommendations for employees. As you might suspect and how I have been alluding to, some
positions were deemed to be within market. So, out of the general population there were only 243 positions that are being recommended for adjustments. These will go into
effect in october the same as everybody else. These are a
little bit more all over the place. It is hard to summarize what the percentage increase changes are for these
individuals but we do have individuals that are being recommended for three, four, 5%. We have others who are seven, eight, nine, 10, we have a few outliers where it was greater
than 15% because the data confirmed the work that behind market with these positions. And we have been talking internally
about this reality and this recommendation being different
compared to the current one where it was 3% across the board, right? So, with that, that did leave 142 employees of
our organization without a specific pay enhancement in
specific compensation because the data evaluated they were already within the range of that position and even once you took it into consideration, the longevity or the tenure factor,
I should say, they were still making more money than what the formula recommended. This wasn't a surprise in certain
areas of our organization because over time the
organization has been forced to pay more than starting pay for competitive -- so, for an example at utility plants we
have been forced to bring in people not at minimum of the pay range because of competition. And so, these are an example of
the individuals that were left out of the formula that that
make up the 142. However, we wanted to be mindful of the committee wanted to be mindful of the fact, you know, there's
a lot of uncertainty right now with inflation and other things. So there was a basic premise and idea that came out which was,
okay, we understand the rationale and logic around why 142 employees are not being recommended for an annual increase to the annually rate or salary. What can we do to try to
put additional money in their pocket? That's where the idea came into recommend a stipend. Which is to the value of the
thousand dollars. So, for these 142 individuals, we would recommend a stipend. Some of those individuals are funded through grants and otmath and t ain't math -ing. We did as part
of this effort include individuals at the formula recommended an annual increase in compensation less than 500 because we just felt that, you know, the formula was
recommending that , you know, john doe was going to increase
annual compensation by $400. We didn't feel that was meaningful enough. So, we did lump in employees the formula
recommended less than $500 and are recommending $1000 stipend as well , that we would recommend and implement -- the
stipend would be $500 on october first and 500 on march first of
the following year to spread that out. And so, ultimately, it
results in roughly a $3.6 million pay program. Now, you
may recall at the beginning of the presentation we mentioned that over five years we had surpassed $5 million. And so,
what we are basically recommending is more than what
we have been able to do for fiscal years 2023 through 2025, so we are recommending for fiscal year 2026 from a monetary
standpoint is greater than those fiscal years combined. So, when we say this is a historic level of investment into our
employees, we mean that. -- from a financial standpoint. And I am
pleased to report we are able to do this without making any sacrifices to benefits. We are not recommending any changes to
retirement plans like was the case last year. We have been able to work with the committee and our cfo gilbert, and gilbert
deserves a lot of credit for what I'm about to go through, which is basically thinking creatively on how to fund this
without impacting other benefits of our employees. And so, thank you, gilbert, for your involvement with this as well.
as a way to help fund this there was also a lot of assumptions we had to make. As you can imagine if the goal was trying to get
something out in april which we had done , we had to make a lot
of assumptions. We don't normally finalize a pay program recommendation until the budget, right? You don't normally get a
feel for the cost of what that's going to be until the summer time. We felt it was important the committee agree we
make some assumptions so we could come up --, with a recommendation earlier than normal so that we can start to
receive input. Because one of the lessons learned from last year's experience was that we perhaps waited too long to start
getting in front of employees to talk about what we were doing, what we weren't doing, we had quite fleshed out the details to
the extent that in hindsight we could have so that led to confusion. We wanted to prevent all of that chaos that happened last year from happening this year, and one way to do that was
obviously, with this recommendation sooner than normal, but in order to do that we needed to make some financial assumptions. I will walk you through the financial
assumptions because this is where the council's role comes into play when it comes to making the recordation a reality. Last year, when we put together the recommendation for
a two-year pay program, we intentionally left a little over
$1 million in the fiscal year 2025 budget somewhat untouched.
we used it for one-time expenditures but we left it unallocated from a recurring standpoint on purpose to make sure that we had money in fiscal year 2026 to honor the
commitment we were processing last year. That's what the $1.1 million is, and where it is coming from. We are also
contemplating as part of these financial assumptions that our community is going to continue to grow to the extent that it
has for the last four or five years that would provide and afford an opportunity for council during the summer to
lessen the property tax rate or keep it flat, right? At the same time increasing our revenues, right? Thanks to an increase in
the assuming that we would receive an additional $500,000 in our
general fund through property tax revenue next fiscal year. We also made the assumption that we will increase the sales tax
revenue in next year's proposed budget to account for this continued growth we are seeing in the last few years and
increasing in sales tax governor, right? Again, these are all assumptions. We have seen an uptick in the last
couple years in revenue from our billing program. So it's gotten
to the point -- you know, the first year we saw the increase and thought, something is up. Now we have seen it become a
pattern. So now we feel comfortable actually increasing formally, in the proposed budget for next year an increased revenue from the ambulance billing program to the tune of
$171,000. If we shift over to the right, what you should see at the top, the $225,000, that accounts for basically us
recommending going into fiscal year 2026 we are now at the point where we feel comfortable transitioning our retiree
medical billings to the opec that was set up over 10 years ago and that the city has been pumping money into every year to
help that . There's $225,000 basically coming from reassigned dollars that we normally would put into our self-insurance fund
that we no longer would because now the retirees liability is coming from the self-insurance fund, they're coming from the
opec -- doesn't make sense? That is something we have intentionally been delaying as much as possible to help the pot
buildup, you know, interest income, help us put money in it, in light of what we are recommending for the paid
program moving forward, it is time to make that shift. So, that's what that account is for. We are also accounting for
some funds to be available in our post closure fund that we could utilize for this purpose where we are basically counting
on future growth to come in and cover that expense moving forward. So there is a certain level of risk that's involved
with these assumptions. At some point, we are going to have to make it. We felt if we are going to make it let's make it for
the benefit of our employees. And so, we are counting for $300,000 from her post closure fund. You heard darrell at
several presentations talk about the opportunities at the landfill. And, again, those tuning in, you may or may not
know anybody that is listening that the royalties that we received from the landfill go to our general fund. I think often
times people assume the royalties from the landfill go into the environmental services fund, but that's not the case. The royalties go straight into the general fund. This provides
a very unique opportunity for us especially with these opportunities that are coming up in the landfill, right? The
expansion, not only the expansion and capacity but the ability to take a certain level of hazardous waste, this puts us
in a prime position to be able to increase royalties from the landfill, not to mention the contract and the company running
the landfill expires in 2027, that has been discussed, we can take a process to have a new contract to have a plan that
structures the royalty to an even greater degree, right? Inaudible ] stormwater utility that would produce roughly
$400,000 in savings, if you will, coming out of the general fund to go to stormwater eccentric expenses that would be
taken up and absorbed by stormwater utility once that is set up. And I get that we have not set it up but this is an
example of an assumption that was made as part of this process. And so, basically, the next steps on top of fine-tuning
the paid program liquidation based on feedback we have been getting as we have been rolling out is basically over the next
couple months continue to work with all of you now on these assumptions and how to make them a reality. And if any one of
them doesn't pan out , they obviously have to have
conversations about where else
particular loss because obviously we are on the hook, right? For the program we have made public and began rolling
out -- and so, I look forward to working with you over the next few months on all of these assumptions and all of these
efforts which, of course, would be incorporated and be part of
the budget development process going into fiscal year 2026. This evening is intended to be an update for you on where this
is. This is not an action item, right? There is usually not an
action item specific to a pay program. All of that is handled through the budget process. And that's the way we intend to
handle it now moving forward after today. And so, I am happy to entertain any additional questions, comments or concerns.
>> what kind of feedback -- I know you have shared this with administration , pd and fire and other department heads. What
kind of feedback are you getting just on this concept? >> I would say that the common questions we are getting are,
one, okay, that's great, I get it, I follow the logic. But we have to wait until october to lament it. Right? Because that
does seem far away if you are an employee struggling to put food on the table, and you are eager to improve your income, we are
basically suggesting this is something that will go into effect october first. And so, obviously, the fiscal year 2025
budget that we are working off of currently obviously doesn't
account for this increased investment in personal related expenditures , but even if we reference this , how we are
proposing to pay for it, right, isn't even money that even is available right now, right? You know? The $1.1 million I am
referencing that we carry over isn't available until next
fiscal year. The increase in revenue property tax, sales tax etc. Is not available until next year, right? There obviously has
not been a decision on stormwater utility. And so, that's why this has to wait until october first because
it's part of a budget development process going into next fiscal year. The second thing that I would say is,
coming out of this, and it varies, because obviously what I presented to you suggests, you know, we are recommending
something that does positively impact certain employees to a
greater degree and some employees not as much, right?
so, with the departments we are seeing the greatest turnover, police, fire and public works, time will tell, right? Time will
tell if they make a difference with retaining individuals better, time will tell if we are able to recruit individuals
better . But there certainly was a sentiment with both police and fire that they felt pleased were the common remarks from them
was, this was better than I thought it was going to be. So,
I am hopeful. I know the chiefs are as well that this could help stop the bleed. -- with those specific departments. Obviously,
with the general population, it is different. Those percentage increases aren't as high. We have employees that aren't
slated to get an adjustment to our salary and fall under the
stipend. We understand why the recordation is what it is, and obviously, the primary request is obviously we are mindful of
them going into fiscal year 2027. Which --
think this process intentionally was intended to help address the needs of our organization that we were most severe which I
think was the right move but obviously, there are other needs
in our organization that would need to be, you know, addressed just as aggressively as we are pursuing certain departments with this plan. We obviously don't have the financial
resources to be equally aggressive across the board, right? With every single position in the organization, so I would say the sentiment around or coming from the general
population, we understand this is a pressing need. I get it. But, what do the future years look like? Right? At the same
level of aggressiveness going to come around and catch my position or my department later? Right? And to councilmember lofgren's point, that is the kind of work that we want to
continue working on with the compensation committee because this is not a one and done effort.
>> thank you. Questions, comments? >> I would like to say I would like to thank gilbert because
the spending strategy was really gilbert. And a lot of these
things are very conservative numbers, and some of them are very solid numbers. There is one up here depending , the storm is
the only one we have to decide on. The others are solid and
others are conservative numbers. So, I feel good about the funding strategy , even if one of them falls through. I think
the others will come in , so, just my opinion.
>> thank you. >> to speak to what mister garza
just said, one of the goals of the subcommittee coming back to
council is our recommendation would be we continue with market analysis, that we continue looking at these numbers so that
the population that may have been missed this time, should
the numbers change, we can grab those that we are never in a position where we are so behind with the task regardless of what
department it is that we are playing catch-up, that we are always ahead of that. So -- >> yeah, I think that's a good
point. I will and that question with this, right? Because as I
mentioned, these are tools in our toolbox, you know? And so, again, we are focusing on fiscal year 2026 with market
adjustments and the lump sum aspect of this but there might be opportunities in future years to focus on all of the above or
just, you know, maybe across the board, right? We did that in fiscal year 2025, right? So, those are the types of
conversations that will continue. >> other questions? >> a comment, I would like to thank all the hard work you guys put in. This was robust. You
guys busted your butts. You took this seriously. I think you came
up with an excellent plan. I would like to thank staff as well for all their hard work, it's not perfect. A lot to
achieve in this profession, but it is a huge step in the right direction. It is a huge step compared to what has been done
in the past. I'm very proud of the work you put in and I would like to thank the mayor for presenting it to subcommittee in
making this a priority going forward. >> scott? >> I have a couple nitty-gritty questions because you all understand this and I am still
trying to put some of it together. So, my first one is, and it's kind of an implementation question. There
is something about an anniversary date when things become effective. Is that just when you first set up and implement this, or is that each time they move into another
step? And if there is not an answer for that --
>> no, no, it applies in those scenarios. So, somebody is moving from step one to step two, that will take place
immediately following their work anniversary. If somebody
promotes and shifts, you know, from police officer to sergeant, obviously, their pay is going to go up the moment they promote to
sergeant and that will create a new anniversary date for them
because now it would then be based off of the date that they became a sergeant. And then it starts all over for them.
>> okay, that makes more sense -- >> -- based off their anniversary.
>> I was hearing it as you promote them, then they wait until their work anniversary to get any benefit from that.
>> no, no. Someone promotes in exchanging jobs -- you are going to improve your pay. Yeah. >> it's just in the
nitty-gritty of hearing it. Also, you said something about
in your calculations you considered cost-of-living
adjustment, I forget the words you called it. And I thought that was a great idea. I appreciated you doing that. How
are you using that in your presentation of this , or are these numbers actual numbers, or are they reflective of
cost-of-living calculation? >> they are reflective of the cost of living calculation. Basically, the target stayed the
same. So, you know, last year, right? We were referring to the target is 90% market. We adjusted all of that data from
last year and added 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment to that data. But the target remained the same because the
cost of living adjustment validated that target of 90% was
truly 100% when adjusted for cost-of-living , cost-of-living
factor to victoria. So, how it should be communicated, and
maybe I should not have described it that way, but in full transparency that's how it is -- basically, the message we
utilize is to validate in the market or not is basically 100% of the data when adjusted for the cost of living differential
of the cost-of-living inventory. >> okay. >> and we utilize the same
cities that were in that study which is bay city, baytown,
brian, georgetown, missouri city,
all the same cities from that study from last year in calculating what is the cost of living in all of those
communities and how does it compare to victoria? And so, I don't know if that answers your question but how it's embedded
in this is its -- it's -- it's in the data.
>> seriously, thank you, committee, for taking stuff like that and understanding it and putting it in the data so we can
address these simple questions. Thank you. >> any other questions? Well, again, to echo -- this is
obviously a big step forward for us, I believe, you know, those
of us who haven't been in the weeds as deep as you three, we will do so as part of our budget process and ask questions. We
certainly appreciate the work you put in and the recommendation. We look forward to learning some more about the
nitty-gritty as mrs. Scott put it going forward. So, thank you
all for your work. And I think this is a big step forward for us, and something we can really build on. All right.
>> thank you. >> oh, one last -- thank you, nina. Thank you for the presentation. She helped put this together. So, kudos. Thank you for that as well.
>> thank you for the stars. All right. I believe that concludes our action items. And city manager report. I think we will
have an executive session. So, we will take a short 10 minute break and be back in executive session at 7:00.
>> the city council recess for executive session on the sixth
day of may 2025 at 6:00 p.