Board of Mayor & Commissioners

MINUTES OF SPECIAL CALLED SESSION OF THE PIPERTON BOARD OF MAYOR AND COMMISSIONERS June 11, 2024, 7:00 P.M. The Piperton Board of Mayor and Commissioners met in a special called session on June 11, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. at City Hall, with Board members: Mayor Henry Coats, Vice-Mayor Mike Binkley, Commissioner Russ Fletcher and Commissioner David Crislip present. Commissioner Bret Morris was absent. City Manager Steve Steinbach, Fire Chief Reed Bullock, Public Works Director Richard Mills, Police Chief Jonathan Roney, and City Recorder Beverly Holloway were present. Vicki Hancock and Letha Granberry were present in the audience. Agenda item 1. Call to order, establish quorum Action taken: Vice-Mayor Mike Binkley called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m., 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 Russ Fletcher led in the Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag. Agenda item 3. First Reading, Ordinance No. 391-24, amending the Budget for FY 2023-2024, (Third Amendment) Mr. Steinbach stated this is our third budget amendment. Essentially the third budget amendment reconciles the books with expenditures that were not made or revenue that was received above what was budgeted. This addresses the General Fund (Exhibit A), Water Fund (Exhibit B), Sewer Fund (Exhibit C), Street Aid (Exhibit D) and the Drug Fund (Exhibit E). On Exhibit A (General Fund) this addresses revenues items and expenditure items. The amendment amounts that are indicated as positive are excess revenue which occurred under Payment in lieu of Property Tax, Business Tax, Building Permit Income, Zoning/Development Fees, Inspection Fees for the Fire Department. The items in parenthesis (noting negative collections) are Traffic Violations, associated City Litigation Tax, State Litigation Tax Commission, No Insurance Fine, and General Sessions/Circuit Court Fees. Interest Income (in the General Fund) increased because of the higher interest rates exceed our budgeted forecast. With regard to the Expenditure items, the departments are listed with the associated line item. Under Administration-Hospital Insurance increased slightly due to classification. Hospital Wing increased due to new employees. Building and Office Rental increased. Charity represents the City’s contribution to Carl Perkins Center. Under Police Department-Live Firing Range, this project has been put on hold pending further analysis and consideration. Under Fire Department- addresses Employee Overtime. Under Public Works-addressing Telephone and Data, Uniforms, Emergency Lights, Community Beautification. These items had not been expended or minor overages on a couple of the items. City Monument sign was not expended in FY24. A lot of these items will be carried over into next fiscal year budget. Under CapEx-Street Aid transfer (Annual Paving)-we did go over on our annual paving due to necessary street repairs. CapEx-Street Aid transfer (Keough Rd)-we did not get to this and this will be carried over to next fiscal year. On Exhibit B (Enterprises Fund-Water), again recognizing revenue for Interest Income, Water Tap Fees, on TDEC (ARP), we are recognizing the revenue that we received ($61,215.00), that is ongoing and will carry on into the next fiscal year. Metered Water Sales increased. Penalty for Late Payment increased. The associated expenditures-Purchased Water increased. Emergency Sewer Repairs-we did not have a major emergency sewer repair. Critton/Hollow Road Water Extension-there were nominal funds spent for associated design and the bulk of that project will be carried over into fiscal year 2025. Public Works Richard Mills stated they have started that project and I hope they will be done first of next week. Mr. 1 Steinbach stated keep me advised so by second reading if we don’t need to adjust we won’t. Mower is a capital item that was not expended in 2024. On Exhibit C (Enterprise Fund-Sewer), on revenue items-Centralized Sewer (Rossville) recognizing $14,000.00 additional revenue. TDEC (ARP) Grant-I just explained the TDEC-American Rescue Plan, this is the associated sewer portion of this. Penalty for Late Payment-recognizes additional revenue. Expenditure items-Piperton Farms Sewer Construction (ARP) will be carried over into fiscal year 2025. Rossville Sewer Fees-line item increased. Public Works Building Expansion-this item was not expended and there is a change in strategy to which Mr. Mills agreed. Annual Decentralized Plant Grass Cutting, Mower, Equipment, Machinery (Generator, lift, tools), Fence Replacement (Shaw’s Creek) are all items that were not expended or a nominal amount expended. Marshall Utilities Sewer Fees-line item increased. On Exhibit D (Street Aid Fund), Interest Income- recognizing increased revenue. Expenditure items-Materials/Supplies/Maintenance-reflects a nominal increase on that line item. Keough Road widening was previously addressed as not expended. Repair/Patch Work Streets/Replace-reflects an increase on that line item. On Exhibit E (Drug Fund), there were no amended revenue items. Expenditure items-Firearms Training Simulator was budgeted but not expended and there was an associated expense for police car outfitting that was charged to that line item. So that is an internal accounting item we are working on. There will be some slight changes for second reading. Action taken: Commissioner Fletcher moved to approve Ordinance No. 391-24 on first reading, seconded by Commissioner David Crislip. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Agenda item 4. First Reading, Ordinance No. 392-24, adopting the annual Budget and Tax Rate for the Fiscal Year beginning July 1, 2024 and end June 30, 2025 Mr. Steinbach stated we will begin with a snap shot of the budget. We are still working with Police and Fire regarding pay scales for the various positions. We are proposing and including in the first reading is a five-cent property tax increase which results in approximately $125,000.00 in additional general revenue funds. That along with the special census that we conducted resulted in another $100,000.00, so essentially a total of $220,000.00 to $230,000.00. The bulk of that will address personnel cost specifically for the upcoming fiscal year that includes 2 new police officers. The idea is to increase the staff complement so that we have two officers on shift around the clock for safety purposes. This is the goal we are striving for. Fiscally with the property tax and the special revenue, we anticipated that we could comfortably absorb that cost this year and then address the additional officers and subsequent fiscal year. Mayor Coats inquired if we would be three short after that to get to the complement of 14. Chief Roney stated yes sir, I believe it is three. We will be one short after the two additional because of the part time position. Mr. Steinbach stated on increased expenditures/notes, you will see the increase in cost anticipated for this fiscal year is broken out by personnel at $298,596.59, again the bulk of that attributive to the two new police officers. We do have some position adjustments/promotions. Additionally, we are proposing a 5% raise for the bulk of the civilian employees this is consist with our market place, recognizing increased inflation cost. Health Insurance cost reflects a 6% increase of premiums across the boards ($7,330.00). Retirement benefits, we are proposing a ½% increase bringing that to 5.5% for FY 2024. With the idea to get to a point where we are making contributions on behalf of all employees and for those who don’t have the means to contribute. There will be a vesting program associated with that. Other reflects $5,000.00 for increased sewer infrastructure depreciation costs. The end result of that is $822,664.79 and that is ambitious. The end result is we will be putting back to fund balance over a half million dollars. Capital Expenses are largely funded from our fund balances, there is close to $4 million in General Fund and $1.8 million in Enterprise Funds Savings. It also reflects grant money we are 2 yet to receive, so we look and seek to put back to fund balance every year. I am proposing an increase to the Board’s salary as well as the Planning Commission’s salary. It has been nearly a decade since the adjustment. Under the State law that increase won’t be recognized by a specific Commissioners until after their applicable election cycle. After this election those who are running will notice the increase and then because of a staggered election cycle the subsequent Commissioners will get the increase at that time. The first reading budget amendment specifically identifies Exhibit A-Summary which gives an overall of anticipated projected revenues by source across the General Fund, State Shared Taxes, Permits and Fees, Services, Fines and Forfeits, Drug Revenue and Other. I will not get into the specifics until the public hearing. I will get into the revenue items on Exhibit B. Below the revenues are the expenditures for the various departments and/or funds. At the bottom of the document, you can see the items that I just addressed with regard to revenue over (under) expenditures, the various capital outlays, transfers out of General Fund into Street Aid, and so on and so forth. On Exhibit B (Projected Revenues - All Sources), this provides a comprehensive overview of our revenue sources broken out by our General Taxes, State Shared Taxes, Permits/Fees, Services, Fines/Forfeits, and Miscellaneous Revenue. On General Taxes, we are anticipating a net increase of $165,000.00. Stated Shared Taxes (General) as noted before has increased because the population has increased. Thanks to the special census, we will realize and recognize the additional increase. Permit/Fees there is a slight adjustment and this is based on market. We are not finished here yet. I have yet to see the final calculations that I have ask for. I think this will probably be a wash. Fines/Forfeits, I am showing an increase but it is not an increase. I included projected revenues based on the average of our historical trend from the last ten years or so. Miscellaneous revenues-projecting an increase. Under that is our Enterprise revenue consisting of Water and Sewer. These are user fees. We run the Enterprise Fund as a business would run its business. The State demands that we keep this fiscally responsible and running in positive territory. We anticipate a continuation of that. I am still looking at some of the numbers but we do anticipate an increase across the board. We will increase our utility fees based on the response from our neighbors. So, we will make the necessary adjustments. Sanitation (Special Revenue Fund), we have a growing population base and correspondingly the revenues are anticipated to increase. State Street Aid is revenue distributed by the State and it is based on a per captia population. The correspondingly increase shown is directly related to our increased population. On the Drug Fund, we do not budget operating expense out of that account and only fund appropriations or capital expenses. That is an overview of our revenues. Back to the summary page, you will see FY 2024 compared against FY 2025 proposed by the associated department. The decrease in Administrative is because we will not be paying rent anymore. The increase with regards to the other departments are directly related to personnel (Police and the initiation of our new IT professional). That cost will be distributed by department per captia. We have decreases by department mostly due to capital expenditures, that were not expended and are being carried over or grant related. We like to keep our Capital Appropriations under our fund balance. We did have significant capital expenditures last year. We did acquire land for the future Fire/Police Facility. That was a quarter of a million dollars and the house being the big expense at another 2 million dollars. The boom truck came out of sanitation savings. We will be purchasing police cars. Moving to the Capital Exhibit, this is broken down by Fund Balance Appropriations and Capital by department. What is the difference you may ask, generally related to the utility of the item. They are both generally one-time expenses and some of these are rolled over like the maintenance agreement on our water tower. Fund Balance Appropriations for the General Fund-Admin transfers to the Street Aid and its paving program. That is not counted twice that is why the $51,000.00 is less the $160,000.00 and $250,000.00 for our street paving program. Under Capital for Admin, I am proposing for a whole house generator for the Piper House. We want to make sure all facilities are backed up. There is nothing significant in our Building & 3 Codes Department. We are moving to a full digital service for our Building Department as well as our Public Works Department, so our personnel will be able to load and input data from the field. Under Fire, some of these are grant related. Under Police Fund Balance-Sign replacement for Suite B. The rest of the Police Capital items are listed for your dissemination. Budgeting for firearms, flock cameras, In-car videos, new computer server, new car outfitting, the living firing range has been reduced as we wait probably until the later part of the fiscal year to consider how we are going to outfit that facility. Fund Balance for the Court includes additional legal fees and computer replacement with no capital appropriations. For the Drug Fund, no Fund Balance/Capital Appropriations. Under Public Works, there is a lot of items. A lot of this is rollover items, landscaping, community beautification, City Hall (floors and painting), new tools for vehicle repairs, emergency safety lights for vehicles, community drainage repairs, Piper Park improvements. Capital items include (items that are split between the General Fund and the Enterprise Funds) mobile tablets, storage building (in lieu of the mezzanine), a new vehicle for the Assistant Public Works Director, City entrance monument design/signage, a skid steer with attachments. Mr. Mills spoke on the skid steer attachments and its usages. On TDEC, it got off to a slow start and we have engaged three engineering firms for design services associated with the wastewater treatment plant, a major waterline extension to enable increased pressures and keep up with the development growth down Hwy 196. And in Piperton Farms, we will be introducing gravity sewer which is paid for by the Federal Government less 35%. Moving onto Sewer, a lot of the repeat items that are distributed across the various funds. Requesting a generator for the sewer lift stations and the Piperton Farms sewer connections with the TDEC in bold letters is primary grant money. Street Aid is typical of our annual appropriations. These monies are distributed by the State of Tennessee to each municipality based on the population and the State requires that these monies are expended specifically with regard to activities associated with streets and the right of ways. There are no Fund Balance Appropriations or Capital Appropriations for Sanitation this year. The grant total is $3.7 million which should reconcile with the overview document we looked at. Over a million dollars is primarily grant money so the net exposure to the City is a lot less than 3.7 million dollars and putting back money in fund balance is critical. To let the board know that I haven’t forgot you, I am still listening. The Vice-Mayor talked about a snow plow and Commissioner Fletcher talked about fire dash cams and during the chaos of the first reading, we didn’t work those in but I do want to have a conservation about both of those because I think they could be utilized at some point but I have no idea on cost. Mayor Coats inquired how many sewer pump stations do we currently have now. Mr. Mills replied seven. Mayor Coats inquired how many generators do we have to which Mr. Mills stated none. Mayor Coats inquired if we were going to do a portable. Mr. Mills stated we will have to do a portable, we will mount it on a trailer. Mayor Coats stated so that is what is budgeted is for – a portable, to which Mr. Mills stated yes, sir. Action taken: Commissioner Fletcher made a motion to approve Ordinance No. 392-24 on first reading, seconded by Commissioner Crislip. The Motion received all affirmative votes. Agenda item 5. Any questions or matter from the audience Letha Granberry inquired when the sanitation fee was increased. Mr. Steinbach stated the sanitation fee was actually reduced from last year and there is no increase anticipated. Adjustments generally happen annually based on the vendor contacting us regarding fuel cost increases. We will increase and pass that on. Ms. Granberry inquired on the two new police officers, would they be on the night shift or will we have to continue getting service from the County. 4  Chief Roney stated we currently have 24-hour coverage now and we are no longer using the County. Those new officers will likely be the ones we use in the evening time. We currently have three officers assigned to the overnight shift on our 24 coverage. They will most likely be assigned to the evening shift. Mayor Coats stated we are trying to have two patrol cars for each shift. Ms. Granberry inquired on the property tax increase. When will that go into effect? Mr. Steinbach stated that will go into effect assuming the Board adopts it on second reading immediately on July 1st. Taxes are due from October to February. Mayor Coats stated I told everyone last year that we would probably due $.20 cents. We did $.10 last year. We will do $.05 cents this year and probably $.05 more next year but it will still keep us at one of the lowest rates in West Tennessee. Mr. Steinbach stated $.4676, I told the Board I don’t like surprises so you either nominal increase, the end result is less than $100.00 on a half million-dollar home, it is additional money but not that much. What I don’t want to do is come back to the Board as you seen in other jurisdictions that we have to double the taxes. Ms. Granberry inquired how do you determine what divisions of the city are going to be paved next? Mayor Coats stated we have an engineer and the Public Works Director that goes around and grades every street every year. This fiscal year, Greenbrier and Lakes of Greenbrier are the worst. So, they will be paved next. Ms. Granberry inquired about Wright Rd. Mayor Coats stated Wright Rd is in pretty good shape except for some of the corners that have broken off. They will address that very soon. That is from all the truck traffic that has been going down there. Ms. Granberry inquired on the extension of the waterline projects on Critton and Hollow Drive. How far down on Critton will it come down? So, it looks like it is at Critton and Freeman. Mayor Coats stated it will run north and south. It will come to Critton and will stop where Freemen comes in. We are doing it now for fire protection because there is not much down there and then we can expand it for homes. Vice-Mayor Binkley reminded everyone that next week’s Board of Mayor and Commissioner meeting on June 18th has been cancelled and rescheduled for Tuesday, June 25th at 6pm. Agenda item 6. 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 7:48 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Beverly Holloway, City Recorder Approved: _________________________________date: ______________________ 5