Board of Mayor & Commissioners

MINUTES OF THE REGULAR SESSION OF THE PIPERTON BOARD OF MAYOR AND COMMISSIONERS May 21, 2024, 6:00 P.M. The Piperton Board of Mayor and Commissioners met in a regular session on May 21, 2024 at 6:00 p.m. at City Hall, with Board members: Vice-Mayor Mike Binkley, Commissioner David Crislip, and Commissioner Russ Fletcher arrived late. Mayor Henry Coats and Commissioner Bret Morris were absent. City Manager Steve Steinbach, Police Chief Jonathan Roney, Fire Chief Reed Bullock, Public Works Richard Mills, Building Official Elizabeth Reed, Finance Director Maria George, City Engineer Harvey Matheny, and City Recorder Beverly Holloway were present. Elizabeth McCommon, Billy Meacham, Charlotte Johnson, Vicki Hancock, Debra Joyner (Fayette Falcon), and et al were present in the audience. City Planner Brett Morgan was absent. Agenda item 1. Call to order, establish quorum Action taken: Vice-Mayor Mike Binkley called the meeting to order at 6:09 p.m. due to the absence of the Mayor Coats, and established that a quorum was present. Agenda item 2. Prayer and Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag Action taken: Fire Chief Reed Bullock led in the opening Prayer and Commissioner David Crislip led in the Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag. Agenda item 3. Any changes to Agenda; Motion to adopt Agenda Action taken: There were no changes to the agenda, Commissioner Crislip moved to adopt the agenda, seconded by Commissioner Russ Fletcher. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Agenda item 4. Any changes to the Minutes of the Special Called Work Session of April 3, 2024 and to the Minutes of the Regular Session of April 16, 2024: Motion to adopt the Special Called Work Session of April 3, 2024 and the Minutes of the Regular Session of April 16, 2024 Action taken: There were no changes to the Special Called Work Session of April 3, 2024 and to the Minutes of the Regular Session of April 16, 2024, Commissioner Fletcher moved to adopt the Minutes of the Special Called Work Session of April 3, 2024 and the Minutes of the Regular Session of April 16, 2024, seconded by Commissioner Crislip. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Agenda item 5. Review/approval of Financial Reports, Building Inspector’s Report, Public Works Report, Fireman’s Report, Police Report and Development Activity City Manager Steve Steinbach stated we are close to concluding fiscal year 2024 with 2 months left, 83% is the number. Most of the significant revenue items are exceeding budget. Our cash positions are strong given a robust capital expenditure year. Balance sheets indicated healthy cash reserves across the various funds. Building Official Elizabeth Reed stated April was fairly steady in terms of permits. There was a little increase from the previous year. There are 35 active new single-family dwellings. We issued 4 certificates of occupancies. There is 1 new home pending review. We issued 5 new single family dwelling permits for a total of 44 permits for April and collected $9,158.58 in fees. There were also 168 total inspections and 32 code compliance contracts. Public Works Richard Mills stated construction on the Piper House is still moving forward. The parking lot area is paved and striped. The dirt work around the parking is about 90% complete. The city did receive funds for the TDEC/ARPA projects in the amount of $165,000.00. That money is being used to pay the engineering firms that are working on our 1 three projects (Piper Farms Sewer, Hwy 196 Waterline, and the Wastewater Treatment Plant). The Paving projects for this year are complete. We paved Mann Dr., Twin Lakes Rd., Ballard Rd. (from Hwy 57 to Twin Lakes Rd.) and Ballard Rd, in the divided 2 lane section. Commission Crislip stated it was done perfectly, they did it well and it wasn’t an inconvenience. Mr. Mills stated he was glad to hear that and he didn’t receive a complaint from the whole subdivision just compliments. This is Public Works Week nationwide and we will be celebrating our Public Works employees with a luncheon this Friday at 11:30. The sewer flow going to Rossville for April was 1,519,900 million gallons for 03/25/24 to 04/26/24 (32 days). That is an average of 47,496.88 gallons per day (59.37% of the allotted 80,000 gallons per day). There were 82 Tennessee 811 line locates. There were 127 total work orders with 3 pending. Included in your packet are pictures of the lake and the Piper house. Fire Chief Reed Bullock stated during the month of April, there was 1 Commercial inspection, 4 rough residential inspections and 6 final inspections. We responded to 32 total calls (27 in the city) with 16 calls being medical. Police Chief Jonathan Roney stated in the month of April, there were 51 dispatched calls, 3 incident reports, 1 arrest report and 4 motor vehicle crashes. We are currently in the process of completing our in-service training at the Memphis Police Department, hopefully to wrap up in July with the classroom portion of it. Watson E-citations are in use with a little work left to do on the back end with the court clerks but everything is functioning well with it. The new explorer has been dropped off for outfitting. City Engineer Harvey Matheny filling in for City Planner Brett Morgan stated the Planning Commission granted final site plan approval for the MCR Phase 2 which is doubling the size of the existing MCR facility. The previous month, Tuscan Iron was approved and Shaws Creek Phase 3 residential was given final approval by the Planning Commission. We anticipate all three of those going on the BMC’s agenda in June for Development Agreements. Piperton Hills Phase 2 (residential) on Keough Drive and Ashley Estates PD-O along Hwy 196 just north of Cornerstone Church have made applications to appear before the Planning Commission in June. Action taken: Commissioner Fletcher moved to approve all reports, seconded by Commissioner Crislip. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Agenda item 6. Resolution No. 24-289, Adjusting the letter of credit posted as security for required improvements to Piperton Hills Commercial, Phase 1 – on behalf of Piperton Hills Phase 1, LLC City Engineer Harvey Matheny stated this development was mostly water and sewer improvements to create two lots along Hwy 72, one of which is now developed as the C-store and adjacent to it is a vacant lot. Water and sewer improvement were put in place so that area could begin to develop. The developer initially posted a full letter of credit so the plat could be recorded early. The original letter was $985,000.00 posted in 2018 and in 2022 the letter of credit was reduced down to $360,000.00. All of the improvements are in place, the pumps are operational and the water and sewer lines are in use. Staff recommends reducing the letter of credit to $75,000.00 which would cover any defects or failures that need to be corrected when we get to the final one-year warranty coverage. Action taken: Commissioner Fletcher moved to approve Resolution No. 24-289 reducing the letter of credit to $75,000.00, seconded by Commissioner Crislip. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Agenda item 7. Resolution No. 24-290, Adjusting the letter of credit posted as security for required improvements to Piperton Hills Residential, Phase 1 – on behalf of Piperton Hills Phase 1, LLC 2  Mr. Matheny stated this is the first residential phase for Piperton Hills that was recently completed. The plat has not yet been recorded but the improvements are in place. Staff recommends reducing the letter of credit from $378,000.00 to $165,000.00 which is the value of the remaining surface asphalt and sidewalks which will be put in at a later date. Action taken: Commissioner Crislip moved to approve Resolution No. 24-290 reducing the letter of credit to $165,000.00, seconded by Commissioner Fletcher. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Agenda item 8. Consideration of Health Insurance Plan Bids Mr. Steinbach stated last month upon recommendation of staff, the Board approved what is a transition health plan. We have been with Humana for a number of years but Humana decided to leave the business. Our broker presented a plan that we felt was a good comparatively speaking plan. Staff felt it was a good plan and the Board adopted that. Statutory requirements had us going out to bid and the data before you provide the bid numbers. We received bids from United Healthcare, Aetna and Blue Cross Blue Shield. The Blue Cross Blue Shield is the selected plan, it is 20% less expensive than most of the other plans and that plan allows the employees to stay with their current specialists and hospital. Staff asked for your confirmation of the Blue Cross Blue Shield healthcare plan based on the actual bid documents. Action taken: Commissioner Fletcher moved to approve Blue Cross Blue Shield Health Plan, seconded by Commissioner Crislip. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Agenda item 9. Recess – hold Public Hearing concerning Ordinance No. 390-24, repealing Ordinance No. 381-23, in its entirety, and revising/adopting various fees for the City of Piperton Action taken: Commissioner Crislip moved to recess to hold a public hearing, seconded by Commissioner Fletcher. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Mr. Steinbach stated Piperton utilizes a comprehensive fee schedule. This revision to the fee schedule reflects the adopted Ordinance 389-24 for sanitation rates. There were no questions from the audience. Action taken: Commissioner Fletcher moved to reconvene the meeting, seconded by Commissioner Crislip. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Agenda item 10. Second reading, Ordinance No. 390-24, repealing Ordinance No. 381-23, in its entirety, and revising/adopting various fees for the City of Piperton Action taken: Commissioner Fletcher moved to accept Ordinance No. 390-24 on second reading, seconded by Commissioner Crislip. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Agenda item 11. FY 2025 Budget – Presentation of Projected Revenues Mr. Steinbach stated the Charter requires that the City Manager presents to you the projected revenues and preliminary expenses in advance of consideration of the full budget which comes in June. He recognized Maria George for her tireless effort. Our financial position is strong. As part of the three-year plan that the Board enacted last year, we are in second year of what is proposed as a five-cent property tax increase. Last year was ten, then five and five for next fiscal year. To put that in context, Piperton property tax rate will still be the lowest in our county and among the lowest in the entire state. The impact of a five-cent property tax increase on a half million-dollar house is $62.00. The associated revenue is about $100,000.00 to $125,000.00. This year the bulk of that will be directed towards the Police Department as we discussed in the work session. As I understand it, it will take 14 full time officers to insure around the clock two men coverage, which is something we are striving for. As we work toward that goal, I have gotten behind adding two officers this year and depending on our financial position adding two more next year to give us the full complement that we need to achieve that goal. That is the bulk of that additional revenue generated by the property tax increase but not 3 only that we did engage in a special census that saw our population increase to 2,801. The result is roughly $80,000 to $90,000 in additional revenues. The snapshot in front of you shows the project General Fund, Enterprise and Special Revenue Funds revenue increases year over year. The Goal of Piperton is to decrease the burden on the residential development and encourage commercial development which we have been able to accomplish that. General Fund anticipates additional revenues from property tax, sales tax, state-shared taxes and special census of $360,000.00. In the Enterprise Fund, we are projecting $136,000.00 in additional revenue that is distributed over our water and sewer funds. Collierville is increasing its water cost this year as I understand it for the next ten years. We are very sensitive to that fact and we are Collierville’s single largest water customer and at some point, there will come a time when getting into the water business is not the challenge that it would be now in terms of new employees, capital costs with digging wells, and EPA requirements. So, we are looking to absorb that cost. It is still cheaper than our customers would pay if we had to get into the water business but the end result is additional revenue that will be booked against the expenses that is associated with that. Same thing with sewer, our decentralized developments are shrinking by design. We have one more subdivision (Twin Lakes) to decommission which we will accomplish when 1 of 2 things happens; either Rossville is considerate of our request to expand our daily allotment and/or we get our wastewater treatment plant going as both are on the drawing books and we are monitoring that carefully. Then the industrial area in our industrial triangle which is Shelby County to the west, Marshall Mississippi to the south and Hwy 72 is served by Marshall Utilities. We have not been notified of any rate increases in the last couple of years but we adjust our rates accordingly. We have employed Buddy Petty to look at our rates and constantly monitor and keep up with that. We anticipate an adjustment later this summer if I have that correct. Special Revenue Fund (Street Aid and Sanitation Fund) are largely funded by the state- shared revenues. So, the increase in our population resulted in General Fund increases but will also result in our street aid increases. And then our sanitation rates which we just renegotiated puts everybody in good stead, the city and the residents. Projected operating expenses increases year over year. We are proposing 5% raises across the board with some positions adjustments to stay ahead of inflation and remain competitive with other communities. Deferred compensation, we are proposing to increase by .5% and ideally and ultimately, we will get to a scenario where we are doing non-matching contributions for our employees who do not participate. There will be a vesting schedule associated with that. Health insurance costs, we were able to escape double digit increases. Operation expenses (other), these are our normal day to day operation expenses-I always challenge our departments to begin at zero and use a zero-based budget mentality and they always provide that for me. We will have some additional expenses that we plan for. For example, we just secured a new IT vendor and we had budgeted for IT services so we are not eating the entirety of that, but that is about a $100,000.00 a year and is distributed on a per head basis. The net increase is close to maybe $30,000.00. We planned for that for two budget cycles, thanks to Chief Bullock and his work on that-we are now getting close to the conclusion of capital expenses on the hardware. So that is a snapshot. The two documents for the record, the revenue/expenditure summary gives you an idea of what was explained in the snapshot. You will see the increased expenditure notes that I just addressed below the table. This shows you by department the anticipated expenditure, operating expenses, changes, year over year and the increases. Notably, you will see the police department that I just addressed and that is the only department that we are proposing the addition of multiple full-time employees. The other departments are a function of increased water or sewer expenses or operating expenses dealing with the IT vendor. We are going to be acquiring several tablets to allow our departments to access and there are data charges associated with that. On Capital expenditures, we are showing a massive decrease. Again, this current fiscal year has been a robust capital expenditure. We have a lot of things on the books from the ARPA capital expenditures including our wastewater treatment plant study, redesign, 4 waterlines. The Piper House is just slightly over but given the rough start I couldn’t be more thrilled where we ended up and still have almost $4 million dollars in the bank in our General Fund. Our largest capital expenditure this year will be related to Police Department cameras. We are looking to install cameras surrounding the city. The criminal element is forcing our hand and that will be a significant expenditure. There will be more equipment for Public Works but the end result is a reduction in the overall year over year increases. Lastly, Exhibit B which is always a part of your formal budget document. It breaks everything down. This gives you the dollar amounts and it is broken up by General Fund and your Enterprise Fund. The General Fund consist of your general taxes and you will see the property tax impact in the far column in terms of the net increase. Increase in sales tax, the State Shared taxes of the General Fund is about $78,000.00. We are projecting increase in Building Permits and flat on Fines/Forfeits. Miscellaneous revenue which is revenue from interest income and we don’t figure in our grants as increases or decreases. The end result is $369,378.49 for General Fund. The Enterprise Fund Operations is a business fund. It is accounted for and is run like a business. That consists of our water and sewer revenues. As I pointed out previously, the projection at the current moment is $136,200.00. Lastly our Special Revenue Funds consisting of our sanitation, street- aid and drug funds, the projected increase of $34,715.20. Total revenue increases of all sources are $540,293.69. That is the preliminary presentation of expenditures and revenue sources. All departments have submitted their budgets and we are working through that. Hopefully before the special session at the June 11th, we will have a completed budget for your consideration. I will be providing feedback to you in between then and now. Agenda item 12. Any other unfinished/new business, questions or matters from the audience Charotte Johnson inquired if the documents pertaining to the budget will be online. Mr. Steinbach stated we will have those documents upload and all you have to do is request them. Ms. Johnson stated I heard you say we had a property tax increase of ten cents last year and we are going to have an additional one this year. Mr. Steinbach stated ten cents last year, five cents this year and five cents next year. I think the increase gets us to .4676 this year. Ms. Johnson inquired if all of that was approved at the same time the ten percent was approved to which Mr. Steinbach stated no. Ms. Johnson stated so each year that is just your projection. Mr. Steinbach stated each year based on what the Board’s directive of was the preceding year so the Board will have to approve each increase at the time of the budget adoption. It is not increased; we are using it figuring it into our numbers but it certainly is not approved yet. Ms. Johnson inquired it this is your recommendation, right, Mr. Steinbach stated it is most certainly my recommendation. Vice-Mayor Binkley stated there are a lot of street repairs needed in the next few years and that will help with that hopefully also. Mr. Steinbach stated generally as I advise the Board and you look around; one of two things happens. You get a situation where you get a pressure cooker because raising property taxes is never a popular thing, so it is avoided, avoided, avoided and then you get into a situation that you are seeing in Memphis or other jurisdictions or you try to get ahead of it and increase them nominally to avoid those massive property tax increases. So that is what we are trying to propose and show how the money is going to be spent. Ms. Johnson stated she was thinking that last year, your opinion was we hadn’t had it increased in a long time and we were going to do ten cents now and we hoped that would carry forward and then another five cents and then another five cents. I think people are going to see this and no one objected to the ten and now every year we are going to have one. 5  Mr. Steinbach stated I believe the conversation was a three-year plan to which Vice- Mayor Binkley said it was. Vice-Mayor Binkley stated each year has to be approved but that was our plan to have a stepping increase instead of three years from now having a fifty-cent increase, that wouldn’t go over very well. Mr. Steinbach stated the two focuses again; the property tax increase and the planned special census. Both of those are resulting in the additional revenue we need for the Police Department. We have never been in that position to fully fund a complement of two officers per shift around the clock. We are trying to work towards that goal and that is largely where the money is going in addition to the capital improvements that the Vice-Mayor spoke of. Ms. Johnson stated it looked like court costs would be a big increase. Mr. Steinback stated no, we have only presented the revenues. There is no proposed court cost increase. I have asked the Chief to get with court clerk because we want to make sure we are market and the same thing is going to be applicable to our building permit fees. Next month we will come with a recommendation for an increase. Ms. Johnson stated I will get a copy. Vice-Mayor Binkley stated everything is extremely preliminary at the moment to which Mr. Steinbach stated yes, very much so. Agenda item 13. Adjournment Action taken: Commissioner Crislip made a motion to adjourn the meeting, seconded by Commissioner Fletcher. The Motion received all affirmative votes and the meeting was adjourned at 6:48 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Beverly Holloway, City Recorder Approved: _________________________________date: ______________________ 6