City Council · 2026-06-09

City Council meeting. Oh, there we go. And I'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. We have Brandon Shumway here to give us our invocation or inspirational thought, and the Pledge of Allegiance will be led by Ashley Shumway. So thank you for coming and doing that this evening. So you just come up here and—

Our dear Heavenly Father, we're so grateful for the opportunity we have to be here this evening in these chambers. We're thankful for The freedoms that we enjoy in this country and in this state. We're thankful for this wonderful community that we live in, and we're thankful for the, the leaders of our city that volunteer their time to be here and do what's best for us, the constituents. We ask that you please bless the mayor, the city council, and the division heads. They can find common ground on some difficult issues that we have here in our city and within our state and within our neighbors. And again, we're thankful for them. Please bless the fire department, the firefighters, and the police department that are out working 24/7 to make our community a little bit safer. Please keep them safe. We say these things humbly in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Will you rise for the pledge? 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.

Thank you for the, uh, for the invocation and leading the Pledge of Allegiance, Mr. and Mrs. Shumway. Right, the first item on our, uh, on our scheduled items is a resolution of the Utah Retirement Uh, I can't remember.

URS.

There we go. Public safety and firefighter Tier 2 hybrid employees contribution rate pickup. So I'll turn the time over to Jenica Jones for her presentation.

Okay, thank you, Mayor and Council. So, as you know, the city participates in the Utah Retirement Systems for employees' retirement benefits. And this includes public employees as well as employees there in the public safety and firefighters retirement systems of that program. So before you tonight is a resolution proposing that the City of Orem pick up the upcoming increase in the Utah Retirement System's employee contribution rates for employees who are in the Tier 2 public safety hybrid retirement system, as well as for employees in the Tier 2 firefighters hybrid retirement system. Effective July 1st, 2026, the employee retirement contribution rate for both categories of employees will be increasing from 4.73% to 5.98%. And the state legislature gives any entities that participate in URS, including Orem, the option to pick up this employee contribution rate for employees in the Tier 2 public safety and fire hybrid retirement programs. Since that's been, uh, since there's been an employee contribution rate in these categories, that is something that the city has always done, and we feel it's in the best interest of the city to continue to pick this up to show support for our public safety and fire employees and to attract and retain these employees. The vast majority of cities in Utah pick up this full amount, so this will keep Orem competitive in regards to our benefits. So any questions about this resolution?

All right, council, um, any questions for Jenica? All right, this is not a public hearing, but if there's anyone who has come who would like to speak to this, I'd give you a minute up here to do that. I'm seeing none. We'll bring it back to the council. I mean, for this resolution. Oh yeah, okay.

Yeah, just one comment. I'd like to say that I appreciate this opportunity to help our public safety in creating a package that attracts them to our city and just some additional benefits for them, because we really want to attract the best of the best. So I, I totally think this is a great move, and I appreciate the opportunity we have to do that as a council.

Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Councilmember Pellett. All right. Okay, Councilmember Kilpatrick.

Mayor, I move to approve the Utah Retirement System, URS, Public Safety and Firefighter Tier 2 Hybrid Employees Contribution Rate Pickup.

Right.

Thank you. I have a motion. Is there a second?

I will second that.

Right. We have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? All right, Councilmember Gale, we'll start with you. How do you vote?

Aye.

We'll go to Councilmember Muelstein.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Right, motion carries. Thank you. Next item on the agenda is a public hearing regarding enterprise fund transfers, and I'll turn the time over to Brandon Nelson, our Chief Financial Officer, for that.

Nothing we can do about the bars.

All right, that's on, right?

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, as part of, uh, our requirements, legal requirements to— as far as, uh, presenting our budget, one of the first things that we have to do is, um, if there are transfers out of our enterprise funds that do not meet the qualifications as far as related to, um, specifically related to a cost, passed, then we are required to hold a separate agenda meeting to discuss those items. And there's a variety of items that we need to discuss as part of that, as required by state law. The nemesis for these transfers is some time ago, the State Auditor's Office requested and required that we transfer— that we record the use by the city of various utilities, primarily water, sewer, street lighting, and stormwater services, and that those be reported in those various funds. That used to be not a cost that the general fund had to bear. And so as part of that, since it's basically the city within itself, we transfer Those— we charge those dollars to those enterprise funds and then immediately transfer those dollars back to the general fund to make it whole, so that there's in reality end up being no, no effect to any of the funds related. But we follow that rule in doing so. As part of that, we have to advertise that we are doing so. And this is the result of that, those transfers. So, um, Well, maybe freezing.

There we go.

Can you hear?

Oh, and you can hear my mouse. So that, that's basically what I've described here on this, uh, slide is the, the various amounts that are transferred Charged to the general fund, and then the money transferred back, each of those various funds. Um, you can see the associated percentage of those amounts in relation to the total expenditures of those particular funds, um, and, and how those, those continue to go down as each of those funds' expenditures rise. Um, as part of that, uh, this information, we're required to provide you with the utility revenue associated with each of the— those funds. So you can see how those transfers impact in our— in relation to the revenues from those funds, as well as outlining the various expenditures for each of those funds as well, so that on The transfers back to the general fund. You can see what the— in essence, the relative impact for each of those funds in relation to the amount being transferred back.

Mayor, could I pipe in really quick? For those in the audience, we apologize for the technical difficulties. There are 2 screens back here that are working. If you wanted to move back, you could see everything that's up there.

Thanks.

Um, then as part of the requirements, then we are required to break down the administrative costs, internal— any internal transfers or transfer information. You can see on the second to last line on the bottom the transfer that's being returned to the general fund, and then, you know, the associated other charges that are being charged to each one of the Funds. This is not all-inclusive, but these are the particular transfers that obviously the total at the bottom is one of the items that we're identifying when you can, as far as the totals go. Then you see a breakdown of the utility fund, each utility fund, and there's a breakdown of general categories within each one of those funds to give you an idea of You know, the magnitude again, kind of give you the idea of the magnitude of the transfer that's being proposed. Same concept with contracted services. What kind of contracted services do each of those utility funds have? Some of those are internal, such as the 311 center and the public works administrative assistants and engineers and the capital projects manager, but many of the others are external, such as Central Utah Water. So just to Just give you an idea of the breakdown within those contracted services. And any questions about these transfers?

Great.

Thank you for the presentation. Council, do you have any questions? Councilmember Meekum.

2 things, Brandon. One, maybe I'll just try to play this back to see if I understand it correctly. And correct me if I get anything wrong. You bet. So state law is requiring us to pay for city utilities out of the general fund at market rates. And historically, we have paid for those out of our utility fees. And so what you're asking us to do tonight is to approve transfers from our utility fees into the general fund for the purpose of doing what Those fees have always done to pay for our city property utilities.

100% correct.

Okay. Uh, can you go back to this, this, the page that has the percentages on it? It was one of the first slides that you showed us. Um, help me understand how to interpret this page. So, is one way of interpreting this page to mean that when you look at All of our utility fees that we collect, that approximately 3.7% of those utility expenses are city property?

Yes.

For the water?

Correct.

And 0.08% for sewer?

Correct.

Okay. Which makes sense. We have a lot of things we water.

Parks primarily.

Yeah. And fewer people who use the sewer. And perhaps residences. Okay. Um, and so that, that just represents the approximate percentage of utility fees in those funds that we're transferring into the general fund for the purpose of paying our city utilities.

Correct.

Okay. Those were my questions. Thank you.

Okay. All right.

Thank you, council. Any other questions? All right, this is a public hearing, so I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing. If you would like to come and speak to the enterprise fund transfers, we invite you to come up here and state your name, and, um, please limit your comments to 3 minutes. All right, appears nobody wants to come and speak to the enterprise fund transfers, so I'll go ahead and close the public hearing and bring it back to the council. So do you—

there is no motion or anything? It's purely informational? It's informational.

Okay, I was going to say I don't see any In action here, so it's just— so there's no motion that needs to take place.

Okay, presumably it is embedded within the budget. Okay, or that would be—

yes.

So, all right. So with that, we'll go ahead and move on to our next public hearing. It's an ordinance, Municipal Officers Compensation Adjustment. So, Mr. Nelson, I'll turn the time over to you.

Okay, thank you, Mayor. Um, as part of, uh, Utah Code Section 10-3-818 that was made into law, uh, 3 years— went into effect 3 years ago. So this will be the 3rd year that we've been required to present this information. We are required to present the certain officers of the city within a separate agenda item and exhibit. And the item— the people who are— I shouldn't say the people, the employees who are listed within this fall within what we deem to be officers, executive officers of the organization. And listing the proposed increase for the upcoming fiscal year Uh, in relation to any merit increases or market increases. Um, and as you can see, uh, through here, um, all, all are at 3%, um, for their merit increase. That's what has been budgeted. And then all are 0 as far as a market increase in relation to that. Just to— and part of that law was to make sure that there was transparency in executive management since executive management has some level of control over the wages. So this way it was shown to everybody what the budgeted intent was. This particular element, there's nothing inconsistent with what we normally do as far as budgetarily speaking goes. And as far far as wages go, for all of our— all of the individuals who either don't qualify as officers or are in the STEP programs, those are just part of our normal budgeting procedures and are part of the budget as well, and, and have been budgeted at the same— whatever their STEP is. I believe almost all of those are at 3%, but whatever those STEP— that STEP program is for individuals, those are also budgeted as well. So I just thought I'd better make sure that that's understood, that this is not all-inclusive list of every employee. It is only those people who are deemed to be municipal officers.

All right, thank you. Council, do you have any questions? All right, this— oh, okay. Um, Councilmember Meekham.

So talk to me about the difference between merit increase and market increase. Uh, I'm just curious as to whether cost of living adjustments, uh, are reflected in the market increase as zero, or if they are potentially in some other place?

So we don't do COLAs. We simply look at the—

our—

what we intend to provide as far as a merit. So there are each employee's— what they're providing to the organization and determine a potential. This isn't necessarily what they would get. It's a if you will, a maximum. We— I say that obviously we generally intend to give that, but there may be a case where that's not the, you know, case. Obviously, if one of the employees is listed here, for instance, was to leave the organization prior to that, then those budgeted dollars are available for other needs potentially.

But if they were here, then there's every intent to potentially provide that level of a merit increase.

Market is based on comparative to other entities and positions outside of the organization and where that particular type of work might fall. So if you're talking about an accountant or an engineer, potentially the market for those particular positions, maybe at a given time, is higher.

And so you potentially could provide a market increase in relation to those specific positions.

And so that's what those two different is between that. I'm not sure how to necessarily address—

No, that makes sense to me. So what I'm inferring from what you've said is that because we don't do cost of living increases, that the proposed merit increase would be 3%, that would be the potential salary increase for these officers. There's not an additional amount that would be somewhere else. Correct.

And we do budget for a mid-year adjustment as we look at every single position. There's a 1% set aside for when we look, go out and look, so identifying in relation to market for specific positions.

So that's not a general across the board, it's evaluated by every single position.

And so then those funds become available at that mid-year mark.

To fund that.

Great, thank you. Are there any other questions? Seeing none, um, I— this is a public hearing, and so I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing for this ordinance on municipal officers' compensation adjustments. So if you've come to speak to this, please come forward and, and share your thoughts. Appears nobody wants to share their thoughts about municipal officers' compensation adjustments. So go ahead and close the public hearing and bring it back to the council. This, this particular item, council, does require an action on, um, from us.

Do you want a motion?

I would love a motion.

I, I'll do it. I move that the City Council of the City of Orem enact the compensation increases for the specific city officers as contained in Exhibit A and adopt these compensation adjustments as part of the adopted fiscal year 2026-2027 tentative interim budget.

All right, thank you. We have a motion. Is there a second?

I will second that.

All right, thank you, Council Member Meekum. Is there further discussion, Council? All right, how do you vote, Councilmember Muelstein?

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

All right, motion carries. Thank you. Um, next item on the agenda is a proposed property tax increase statement. And so this does not require action, Council. It's just that our Brandon Nelson, our Chief Financial Officer, is going to make a statement. So I turn the time over to you. Just state.

Yes, under new, uh, state law, anytime there is a budget discussion that regards— that has a property tax increase component to it, I am required to notify everyone here that the item that we are going to be discussing as far as the fiscal '26-'27 budget has a property tax increase in it. And that's really all that I'm required to say for that particular element.

All right, he has stated. So with that, we'll go on to item 4.5. He is going to state something else— proposed property tax increase impact schedule. So go ahead and state.

All right, so as part of, uh, the discussion in relation to a property tax increase, we have prepared based on the state law, the required elements to be addressed within this property tax impact schedule. As part of that schedule, you'll see that we are proposing a rate increase above the certified tax rate, which is the current fiscal year— or current 2025 certified tax rate, as we have not yet received Um, the 2026 certified tax rate. The State Tax Commission and the county and the auditor have basically until June 22nd to provide that. Um, they're— they are working. I've received emails and they are working diligently to try to get it prior to that date, but obviously not in time for this meeting. So therefore, all we can do is provide an approximation of what that might look like, and based on the amount of money, the $450,000 being requested for property tax revenue increase. You can see the proposed change above that certified tax rate from 0.000603 to 0.000645. And as part of that, you can see the associated revenue that was budgeted was the $6.4 million. That was an estimated amount. And then just below that, you can see the $6.864 million, which equates to the $450,000 increase. The estimated increase in that property tax rate above the certified tax rate is 7.02%.

And that is just for the Orem city portion.

This is correct.

Not the entire property— one's entire property tax bill.

Correct.

It would be just the city's component piece.

Sorry for interrupting your statement.

Property tax bill.

And I want to interrupt too. The, the percentage that this will be of their property tax, total property tax bill, do you remember? Was it 0.07?

It was like 9.

Where's the— you know what I'm trying to say?

Yeah, I do, but I don't know what you gave that to us once.

Okay, you don't have that written down?

I don't.

But just to the point that the mayor's making is that the majority Of the property tax dollars collected, we are but a small percentage of that.

Yeah, the city's portion of your property tax bill is approximately 13-14% of your total property tax.

Because the other taxing entities are the school district, the water—

this isn't county water—

the county.

But yeah, so this is— that 7.02% is in relation only to the city's piece of the property tax bill.

As part of the transparency, we also are required to provide you with an estimate based on the average primary residential value of $513,000. That comes from the— that number amount comes from the county, so not something I just pick out of thin air. The county provides that. And the associated— with that associated tax increase in the rate, and they're increasing That would equate to an $11.85 annual increase to a property valued at $513,000, which you can see equates to a 6.97% increase. Um, associated— the commercial establishment valued at $513,000 would see an increase of $27.57 annually, and again, that's an 8.91% increase for a business valued Part of this is also identifying what is that $450,000 requested increase going to. And the intent here is to fund 2 police officers and their associated—

all of the associated vehicles and equipment in relation to fully outfitting those 2 officers.

Are there any questions about any of those items that I've mentioned?

I just have a question with this intention. This is where the money would have to go. We can't, as a council—

not—

I have absolutely no intention or anything, but I know that there have been questions of, could the city council, as a council, vote to have it go somewhere else if it were to be enacted? It has to go for this because you've stated this is the intent of what it is, how much it is, and where it's going to go. Is that correct?

That is correct.

Okay.

Yep.

If, if we were to move forward and try to use something else for that, those funds, then they would deem that as, you know, not following what, what we've indicated we're going to do, and they can pull it back potentially.

All right, thank you. All right, anybody other comments? Thank you for your— oh, do you have—

okay, one brief comment. So, um, I, I think this was implicit in what you said, Brandon, but I just want to repeat it, uh, to ensure that I'm, I'm correct. Uh, so for what we think is an average primary residence value of about $500,000, uh, the implication of that for a taxpayer in that category would be, uh, $1 a month, essentially.

That's correct.

Uh, slightly less than $1 a month, um, or, um, annually less than the cost of a Movie theater ticket every place besides the Sarah. All right, all right. Okay.

All right, with that, thank you for stating your statements, and we're going to move on to item 4.6. It's a resolution, the creation of Public Safety Special Revenue Fund and statement of intent to dedicate the general operations portion of property tax to public safety. And so, Council, at some point this is going to require an action, and we'll turn the time over to Brandon Nelson.

Thank you, Mayor. As we've discussed several times, the fiscal '26-'27 budget does contain the separation and creation of a new special revenue fund. There was some confusion in relation to the May 12th tentative meeting as far as the resolution that was associated with that. That resolution was simply intended to be an indicator of what was intended to happen in the meeting today. So, in the meeting today, what is being requested is 2 totally separate items. One is the creation of a special revenue fund for public safety, and that all associated revenues and costs would be placed within that special revenue fund. Separately from that approval is a statement in the resolution that states the intention Of the city council to approve the dedication of the city's property tax levy to that newly created special public safety special revenue fund. That intention is— the reason it's an intention is because we, if we move forward with a property tax increase proposed, that meeting is in August, on August 27th. And so property taxes would not be— that levy would not be set until that August 27th meeting. Therefore, the intent is to go to that meeting to approve not only a potential property tax increase, but approve the full levy and, and the dedication of those property taxes towards that public safety special Those—

this—

that's a separate item from the creation of the special revenue fund.

So can I just ask a quick question?

You bet.

So this, this resolution in our packet creates the special— the Public Safety Special Revenue Fund. I want to make sure I understand— creates that fund and then states the intention that we will be putting the Regular general operations property tax levy into that new fund, but we can't do that until after the truth in taxation hearing, until we find out whether council approves or denies the property tax increase.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

And so just then to kind of back up a little bit, so what— why are we interested in creating a special revenue fund? So number 1 is we feel like That it provides a better transparency for what the cost of our public safety is, and it specifically outlines those— the revenues associated with them, as well as the cost, all of the costs associated with the public safety departments. As part of that, if we were to move forward with dedicating the city's property tax to public safety, then it is required That we have a special revenue fund to account for those dollars. But that does not mean we can't have a special revenue fund even if those dollars are not dedicated. So you could still create a special revenue similar to what we've done with our development fees fund, where we separated out all of those items related to building permits and planning, and that those Those are separated into a specific fund so that we can see what the costs associated with providing those services are.

So they're very similar in that nature.

Um, just to give an idea, so currently as of fiscal '26, The total budget for fire and police within that fund is just a little over $38 million, $38.1 million. The property tax that we're discussing is approximately estimated to be $8.1 million. Obviously, there is a rather large discrepancy between those 2. I know there has been some concern About, well, you're just going to raise a property tax to cover that $38.1 million. Number one, if that were to occur, that would take a very, very, very long time to get to that point. Number two, we understand that that isn't real. That's not our goal. But the goal is to provide some level of stability to our public safety from one of our most consistent and dedicated sources of revenue that does not vary based upon the economy. We receive the same amount of tax dollars from property tax every year without us doing anything. So when it's set, we get the same amount irregardless of how the economy doing. So it's a stable source in relation to one of, one of our core services of the city. So we would like to bolster as much as possible the relationship between that property tax and our public safety departments. As part of the timeline, just to give an idea, obviously we had the— our tentative budget discussion on May 12th, which again, we outlined the intention to want to move ahead with creation of the special revenue fund and dedicating the tax. This resolution puts that more into line and spells out exactly what we would be doing as far as what I've already discussed, as far as whether to create that. Um, it was brought up. The special revenue fund, while we would, we would love for that to be approved tonight, that's not a requirement. It could be along with the dedication of the property tax in August. That special revenue fund, you could go ahead and wait and create that as part of the August meeting as well. We would prefer to at least have the fund created Now, whether it's funded or not, that, that is a different story and can be determined upon adoption of the final budget in August, if necessary. As mentioned, this meeting is to discuss those things, and we've talked about the various things related to the property tax increase, and that's all that this Slide is indicating is those things that I just mentioned in that property tax impact statement. And then, as mentioned, a TNT meeting on August 27th of this year, we would be discussing not only the property tax increase and whether to approve that or not approve that increase, but we'd also be discussing the dedication of the city's general operations property tax in that meeting and whether we would be dedicating that to public safety. or not, as well as the discussion around the special revenue fund, potentially. That's all I have.

All right. Thank you, Council. Any questions? Yeah, Councilmember Millett.

Some comments and questions. Um, your first slide, will you go to that, please? Yeah, let's see, where did I see this? Um, okay, so although we are legally restricting all property tax collected into this fund to public safety, we are not— clarify for me this, please, and Steve— we are not tying the hands of future councils to— this is a decision that will be made every year based through our budgeting process. This is not an automatic This is something that is always considered. But what this fund does is this gives us the opportunity to have more transparency in where those funds are going, that they are going to our public safety, and that not just the property tax funds, but all of the revenues that our public safety is generating through contracts with other cities, through other licensing, whatever we're doing. There's a whole list, right?

Mm-hmm.

will go into that fund and will not be absorbed into other, to subsidize other areas of our budget. Once again, transparency, saying we are funding our public safety and this is how we're doing it. And we're letting them, those revenues that they generate stay in their budget.

Correct.

Is that correct? Yeah, let me—

Is that fair?

Yeah, let me make sure, just restate that. So thank you for bringing that up 'cause I did fail to mention that. Yeah, so this in no way, If we were to move all of these things to a special revenue fund, and that property tax, and you were to dedicate that property tax, that dedication occurs every year. Every year you pass a budget, you are dedicating the property tax as you would like to see it dedicated, whether that's to the special revenue fund, or if you wanted to then move it back to the general fund and place it there, you have the ability to make that change. And then again, each year you could also potentially, if you have moved that property, that dedicated property tax back to the general fund, you could also discontinue the use of the special revenue fund. And you could move all of the public safety back into the general fund if that, if you so chose. Now, obviously, again, the dedicated piece of that makes the difference, right? If you're going to continue to dedicate that to public safety.

It has to stay separate.

But if you were to move it all back, you have that flexibility and/or the members after yourselves always have that flexibility.

Because there are members of the public who are comparing this to the constitutional direction from the state income tax to education.

Correct.

And this is not even close to that.

Not even close.

Not even close. I just want to make that clear because I have had a lot of people say that to me. You are now tying the hands of everybody into the future. And I'm like, no, no, no, that's not— it's not even.

And that's why we pass a specific ordinance specific to that fiscal year each year, is because each year you're dedicating— this is what it looks like for this fiscal year.

And actually, these people, same people, I just say you're going to love this because this is transparency in action.

Correct.

This is where you will see exactly money coming in, staying with our public safety, and how, frankly, holding them to account too with how they're spending that money.

You bet.

It will be just a much more transparent action.

That's our, that's our feeling as well.

Okay, thank you, Councilmember Millett, for, for clarifying that. You brought up— that's a good point to remember, that, that it's not like the Constitution, the state Constitution, that this is something that we have to look at every year. But you also brought up another good point, and that is that if public safety does receive additional funding in other areas, maybe for wildfire, if they've gone to fight wildfires or contracts with other, other communities, that that money goes into this as well. So there's, there's accountability and, and showing and transparency, saying, but this is the money that they brought in and this is the And this is the funding that we'll use going forward. So thank you for bringing that up. Appreciate it.

Yeah, Mark hates it when I tell him that I'm using all of his fire inspection money to buy my sodas every day.

Yeah, joke, joke, right?

He's not laughing too much over there, Brandon. All right, Council, are there any other comments or questions?

I just have a quick comment. Uh, Brandon, thank you, and staff, thank you for Bringing this forward. We've been talking about this for a long time and a lot of months, and I think it just brings a foundational continuity to public safety that I think is, is very important and one of the, one of our main responsibilities as a city to provide public safety. And I think this is a great way of going about that. So thank you.

Right. Thank you for your comments as well about the responsibility of us as a community providing those very basic services. And so, All right, if there are no other comments from the council or questions— this is not a public hearing, but if there's anybody who would like to speak to this item, you're welcome to come forward and do so. Don't worry, I'm not going to stare anybody down or anything. Okay, it's like everybody's just happy where they are. So, all right, bring that back to the council. And like I said before, council, this requires an action by us. And so I would look for a motion.

So I, I would like to make this motion. I would like to make one change, if you'll note, when I read this, and it's on the funding portion. Um, so I move to approve the resolution, the creation of a new Public Safety Special Revenue Fund to be included in the fiscal year 2026-2027 tentative budget, and state that the Orem City Council Is considering the dedication of all of the City of Orem's general regular operations property tax levy for fiscal year 2026-2027 to this new fund.

All right, thank you. I have a question on that. Is, is intends— is the word intends something from the state law? Do we have to use that? I mean, I don't have a problem.

Yeah, and that's just to clear up this concept. I mean, I've had several people say you guys did this already. We're not, we're not voting on this till August. Okay, it's a 2-part motion too.

Yeah, so you're, you're, you're free to say that you intend to do it, or you're free to say that you're considering.

Okay, great. Okay, thank you. I just wanted to make sure, like, like, um, the statements that Brandon had to do earlier, that he— it was intend, and I didn't know if it was going to be used, and it had to be used in the same way. So, all right, counsel, we have that motion. You understand what the proposed change is to the motion? Is considering instead of the word intends.

And also adding the fiscal 2026-2027.

Okay, property taxes.

And Brandon, are you comfortable with that wording? Okay.

All right, you have a motion.

I will second that.

We have a motion and a second. All right, any further discussion? Okay, Councilmember Kilpatrick.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, thank you. Motion carries. Next item on our agenda is a public hearing regarding an ordinance adopting fiscal year 2026-2027 tentative interim budget, and we'll turn that time back over to Mr. Nelson. And this will be an action item, Council.

Okay.

First, we get to see some pretty faces and beautiful mountain. Uh, just to give you, uh, just a brief, uh, touch on the calendar that we've gone through. Um, you can— January, we had our council retreat, had several work sessions during the month of April, and the special work session even in May. for various reasons. And then our tentative budget was presented to you on May 12th. This public hearing to review the tentative budget on here on June 9th, and then assuming we want to move forward with truth in taxation, a meeting on August 27th has, has been reserved with the county auditor to Handle the property tax increase proposal. Some brief budget highlights. Obviously, I've mentioned before the increase in the budget of some $35 million, and we'll go into that. Why it's $35 million has a lot to do with that public safety fund that we were just discussing, and hopefully created some slides to help better understand that as well. It funds all of the city's compensation programs as well as benefits and provides— I mentioned some funds set aside for market-adjusted, targeted market adjustments— and then funds all of our fleet replacement needs as well as a large amount of capital project requirements. Just as a general large picture, high-level budget of the review, you can see the bottom right corner, the change from $177 million to $211 million. You'll notice that second line item to the bottom is related to the Public Service Fund because it is a separate fund and we still want to fund. And as I mentioned, the property tax won't cover, and as well as their other revenues, won't cover the entire cost of the public safety. It will require a transfer from the general fund to the public safety fund of just a little over $25 million. Because of that transfer, you know, out of that, what, $34 million, $25 million of it is related to that one thing alone. You can see on the second to the top line, the tax increase, property tax increase that we are proposing and has been proposed. Just to give you an idea of that, associated with the public safety fund, there also includes various transfers related to services being provided by other internal, whether that's our information technology, our IT, whether it's facilities, whether it's accounting, whether it's any of those insurance, etc. Those are accounted for as part of that.

transfers line.

And so that's why you also see an increase in that element as well. Just to give you an idea of, you know, how the funds break down in relation to what you might term new revenues in the first column, and by each of our larger funds, and what are associated with transfers in To those funds, as well as if we are appropriating any fund balances and using those fund balances to fund something within each of those funds. Are there any questions about that? Just kind of gives you an idea that out of that $211 million, you know, a large portion of that is not new revenue, right? It's just moving money between different funds. And so that's an important element to also remember as we go through there.

And I hate to say that's an accounting thing, but it is.

Um, now moving on to specifically our general fund, uh, the, the general fund, you can see the revenues there and you can see how they're, they're relatively stable. And I should mention, you notice that up at the top I've removed all the revenues associated with public safety across all of those years so that we have a compare— as comparable as possible at this point across those years for the general fund. And you can see those transfers in, which again are primarily related to various elements that are— those people exist within the general fund, but they do work for all of the other funds, whether that be the public safety fund, whether that be the water fund, whether that be the sewer fund.

And so that's an accounting for those charges. For those services.

Just to give you an idea of where does the general fund primarily receive its revenues from, and again, I'll note the notation up at the top just to give you an idea of the change that occurred because of moving the public safety fund into its own fund. And the largest being, of course, the charges for services line, as our contract with Linden and Vineyard, as well as a couple of other items, those charges, fire inspections, those charges, because they're removed, you can see the drop in the percentage of that revenue associated with the total revenue of the general fund.

And how That then increases the sales and franchise tax components in relation to the general fund as well.

Just briefly, you know, the sales tax, we've, we've had some discussions obviously previously on that. Nothing has changed. My current estimate for fiscal '26 is a 3% increase.

Uh, for the year, and then a proposed— that fiscal '27 proposed is a 3% increase on top of where I think fiscal '26 will end. Um, there's so far been nothing indicating to me that we would be too terribly far off from either of those, particularly in relation to the fiscal year '26, um, 3% estimate. Uh, just to give you an idea of related to some of the other, um, revenues associated with either the general fund in relation to business licenses, or we talked briefly about building permits in that development fees fund. And you can see we don't really anticipate much change in either of those revenue sources going into next year. Some other general fund items that are of importance to that fund.

Interest earnings will decrease slightly for various reasons. Interest rates, despite them maybe being up recently, the earnings that we receive are either the same or lower than what they had been.

Our Justice Clerk just stays the same, as well as you can see cemetery lot sales We don't anticipate much change in, in that one as well.

Any— before we go on to expenditure, are there any questions about any of that revenue stuff that I have been discussing?

Council, any questions? Councilmember Meekum.

I do just have a couple of clarifying questions. Uh, can you go back to the, um, place where you talked about— oh, we can start there. Fiscal year '25 versus fiscal year '26. I know that we don't have the final numbers for '26 yet because it's not over, but based on our current estimates, you think that we have received— we will receive more by the end of fiscal year '26 in sales tax revenue than we did in '25? By a couple of percent.

By 3%.

By about 3%. And we have enough information to make that Estimate, uh, I'm at—

we are at 2.9 right now.

Okay.

And that's— yeah, so we received the May distribution, or the May distribution is for sales through March. So I have 9 months worth of data. I'm making my best bet estimate of the remaining 3 months, and based on how we've been going from month to month, the Yes, I feel relatively confident that we would be at near that 3%, uh, mark.

Okay, so I mean, it's relatively good news that, that it's, it's growing. Can you go back also to the slide where you're talking about how the charge for services has changed? This one, this one right here. Uh, you briefly described that, but I'm not sure I fully understand why, uh, that is changing significantly.

So the fiscal '26 column is what it was with public safety included. So that $8.479 million excludes items that would have been included if the public safety fund had been included.

It would have been a significantly higher amount, approximately $14 million-ish, if it had been included.

So, so those, those monies are going to go into this special revenue fund rather than the general fund. And so that's what you're calculating, right? Thanks.

Yep, you bet.

I want to describe what those are.

And I—

and we will.

The one right after talking about the general fund is our public safety fund. So we will discuss those in a little more detail.

All right, any other questions right now? All right, thank you.

All right.

Should we go on?

Gotta do expenditures first, don't we?

So just to give you an idea of a breakdown in the citywide— so citywide, we're going back to the top here. Where, where do citywide— where is all of the money, that $211 million, where is that spent?

You can see a large portion of that is spent in personnel.

However, you'll notice that the percentage of that personnel In relation to the total is a little different, but you can see operations, and later on we'll break down operations a little bit more.

And then the capital component, whether they be equipment, vehicles, or projects. A large portion of that capital is related to, of course, our utility funds, which you will see in a little bit as well.

So just to give an idea of, again, how do expenditures break down by fund, you can look in there and see, you know, where, where are all those personnel, where do they reside, how are those operations, where do they—

who's spending all that operational money, and where does that capital come from in relation to those individual funds. So it's just a global picture to kind of have an idea of the What's the size and where do those dollars come from?

As I mentioned, breaking down that operational component, there was a concern last time when we talked about the tentative budget when we were looking at this slide and we were looking at that general fund, $43.6 million. Well, and any of these, to be honest with you, Well, what makes up those operational components? And so I added this slide here to try to give a better picture for what those operational components are. So similar to what we talked about with revenues, that operations column are actual costs, things that actually that fund spends on specific things. You can see that within that operational expenditure item, there was debt of some almost $11 million that is part of that. And then transfers out, which we've discussed, and you can see the $37 million. So out of that general fund, out of that $43 million, almost $38 million of that is related to transfers out, of which $25 million of that is related to the Public Safety Fund and is moving to that fund. So the general fund, just like we talked about with the Public Safety Fund, Also pays for various services and different elements, and a large portion of that debt service also is a transfer out from the general fund for Utopia as well as the 2024 sales tax revenue bond. So that money is transferred out of the general fund into the debt service fund, which is the fund that actually pays for that debt.

But that increases that transfers out, right?

So that's an important thing to keep in mind, that $54, almost $55 million in transfers out is a transfer of money between funds to cover various costs.

And so please keep that in mind as you have discussions with constituents or you think about that for yourself in relation to that big picture $211 million and that big change. And you're welcome obviously to contact me. I really, again, Again, yes, that is, that is accounting. And I, um, we follow GAAP and the way we're required to under accounting standards. And unfortunately, sometimes that can lead to a little bit of confusion as to how those have to transpire in government fund accounting.

So please keep that in mind. Just touch briefly on some of the general fund additions where we're adding in an attorney into the attorney's office, as well as an urban technician in the urban forestry division.

And then within operations, we mentioned Podium, which is a software that we use that had been being funded with ARPA funds, and those funds are no longer available. So we like Podium and want to continue using it. And so we had needed to add— move those dollars and find a way to pay for those, as well as increasing our Youth Council dollars so that our youth that you saw, I believe, here in the council meeting a year or two ago can continue to learn and enjoy being part of the government arena. We touched on at the very beginning cost of fleet replacements. You can see the comparison for this year as opposed to the prior year. And then down at the bottom, our general and public safety fund breakdown, as opposed to our various utility and road funds and the vehicles associated with that. And we had a work session where we discussed a little more of the details of what those vehicles are. But this does hopefully give you some ideas to where those dollars are being spent within a general category.

Okay, now we get to the public safety fund that I mentioned. Um, so you can see a breakdown here, um, that what was being proposed as far as where those revenues for the public safety, that new public safety fund, would be coming from. You can see the property tax, that would be the dedicated property tax item, as well as the proposed increase. There are grants that we receive. We budget— we don't generally budget for grants, but there are 2 grants for Public safety, one within the task force for a HIDA grant that's from the federal government that is budgeted because we have received it every year since like every year I've been here.

And then there's also what's called a liquor allotment, which is also something from the state, and we receive something from that allotment every year as well. So we feel pretty confident in receiving those, so therefore we go ahead and budget those. Councilmember Millett mentioned charges for services and the breakdown. I wanted to—

that $6.2 million, so you can see down across the bottom identifying kind of the majority. Those, those 4 items make up probably 90% of that $6.2 million.

And, and there are some other smaller elements within that, but those are the, the big hitters within that category of revenue.

Thank you.

And especially once you pull out ambulance, you can see the size of ambulance revenues that we receive from those services.

Within the fees and fines, the largest element in there is fire inspection fees.

So about $470-ish million of that $533 million is related to fire inspection fees. And then again, the transfers in out the bottom coming from the general fund To fund the remaining amount needed to fund the special revenue— the Public Safety Special Revenue Fund. Are there any questions about that?

Fantastic.

Talking about property taxes, just a simple chart to kind of give you an idea of, uh, what our property tax—

that the far right one obviously includes Includes the proposed property tax increase.

Um, and, um, there is an— there's some big estimates that go on here. So if, when we receive the actual certified tax rate and associated budgetary revenue, that may require an adjustment, and we have within our budget the contingency. So if I need to adjust that property tax amount, then we would replace that.

Up or down in relation to that contingency account.

You bet.

Okay, so would you just once again— I keep— I get all these questions, so I just would like to have you clarify it at this time. So our certified tax rate, we don't know what that is yet, correct? We have the one from before last year. We anticipate that it will be lower.

Yes.

And so we are transparently saying Um, it's going— we're, we're going to be higher than it was last year.

Correct.

So whatever that certified tax— the certified tax rate, the reason we think it will go down is because we think property values generally will either be the same or probably increase. So therefore, when property taxes— property values increase, the rate goes down.

When the rate goes down, we don't know exactly what that is yet, but we will be setting a rate higher than that rate only to produce $450,000. So whatever it takes, whatever that rate needs to adjust to to create $450,000 is what that rate that we would come to you to set.

And the reason there's that inverse relationship is because of the way the State of Utah does our, I don't know how to say it, does our budgets. I mean, does—

We are different than every other state. So just as a very simple example, if the city were to receive— let's use fiscal year '26 estimate— if we were budgeted to receive $7.8 million in that year, fiscal '27, we get $7.8 million. That does not account for new growth. So if there are any new— you know, across the street here, we tore down a Burger King and building a Raising Cane's. That's got to be worth a heck of a lot more than Burger King.

No.

Eat more chicken.

No, Home Depot is probably a better, better point, right?

When Home Depot is up and operational, the, the property tax value of that property will increase, um, dramatic— quite a bit. You know, that would not be accounted for as part of that $7.8 million. We would receive that additional property tax on top of that. That now would become the new base So let's just say it was $200,000.

So now our new base would be $8 million going forward.

I'm very, very simplifying it.

It is a very complicated thing that the county and state tax commission go through.

That's just to give us stability in our budgeting.

Correct.

So that whether values go up or values go down doesn't matter per se to us.

I mean, it may be a reflection on the economy, of course, But it does not necessarily impact the city and our ability to provide those core services. That's what their logic behind that was.

All right, thank you. Councilmember Meekham.

While we're on this slide, I just want again to think about the big picture here. So we're proposing a $211 million budget. About $25 million of that is fake in the sense it's an accounting move because we're creating a special revenue fund.

Correct.

So in terms of actual expenditures that we would anticipate coming out of that budget, we're talking about $180-something million, right?

It's even lower, right?

Because there— that's not the only fund that has those kind of transfers in and out, right?

There was $50, $54 million of transfers in and out. So it's really—

Including the $25 million?

Yeah, which includes the $25 million.

Okay, so $160 million. Something, $770 million is the big picture budget. And of that money, we anticipate $8.5 million coming in from property tax.

Correct.

Which means this is just a tiny sliver of our overall revenues. We're talking about, you know, 5 or 6% here of our overall revenues coming in from this, right?

Depending on how you Yep, you are 100% correct.

Okay, so this— I, I, I just think that not everyone understands that, uh, how small, um, a portion of our overall revenues come from our property tax.

Yeah, I agree.

And then I'm gonna take the flip of that a little bit, not, not to be Eeyore or anything, but it is a very small percentage, but it's a very steady, stable percentage. And what that shows is how much Right now we're dependent on a more— a less stable funding source for a lot of our expenditures, and that's sales tax, because we're at the mercy of a million different factors with the economy and people's lives and things like that.

Absolutely.

So yes, I do think it's very important to show that property tax is a small portion of that, but just also we need to be mindful of how much our budget Is, uh, consists of a less stable funding source as well.

Yes, I agree.

And, you know, not that we have to go crazy, right? The reason property tax has been as low as it has been and why we haven't done necessarily many property taxes is because we had prior council members who understood sales taxes and built the city around an understanding of what sales taxes could do, and particularly the, you know, the Parkway area, right? So, so there's a benefit to be gained by that.

Exactly, exactly. The intent all along from all the prior councils and us too is to keep our property taxes low.

Yes.

And I think that's reflective here.

And, and the only thing that we're trying to say now is property taxes— I mean, sales taxes have kind look like they've maybe hit a certain plateau, right, where we can't necessarily count on huge gains within the sales tax category. So if you're not gaining enough to keep up with inflation and cost increases, what do we—

what, what other mechanism do we have to be able to keep up with that? And that, and that's a part of what we're trying to make sure that we understand. When we had the general fund sustainability study that we talked about, that's part of why we did that study, is to be able to make sure that we all have a good understanding of where we're headed and what those possibilities look like.

I appreciate that study and showing us what, what the different possibilities could be. Thank you, Councilmember Meekham and Councilmember Miller. Any other questions thus far? All right, carry on.

So I just wanted to put this back up there since we're talking about the public safety fund. Now, I'm talking about that property tax increase and just a slide to be able to, you know, have in that slide deck in relation to what the proposal for that property tax increase was to fund, is to fund.

And then just give you a breakdown of that $45 million for the public safety fund between police and fire and And how those break down between personnel, operations, and capital, just to give you again a kind of an idea of the, the size and magnitude of each of those.

Um, briefly touched on this in our tentative budget presentation, but again, just kind of highlighting the property tax increase there for the personnel, and then down in the operations, uh, various items that have been requested to be to fund those various items, um, as we, we move forward with those—

with expansions, either because the— they've been covering it with what they have and the time has come, they no longer— they're not doing something else that they probably would like to do or should do because of these particular items, because they're using those funds to fund these things. And the time has just come to be able to not have to scrape together from this account and that account to be able to fund those. So we're dedicating those funds to be able to make sure that they can do that without having to scrape away from other needs that they have to be able to accomplish the things that they should be doing.

And would you just, because I get this all the time, what is EMPG? What is FF&E?

So, uh, EMPG is a grant, a federal grant for emergency preparedness. Uh, that grant has been shrinking and shrinking and shrinking, but we would like our emergency manager to still be able to get the things he needs to make sure we are prepared. So the city is now, in essence, committing for that shrinkage of the grant amount to cover that shrinkage. Um, New Voss is the animal shelter. And so our costs for taking care of animal control within the city has increased over time. And again, they've just been finding ways to fund that. And so finally dedicating those dollars to that increased amount that they've been charging, that they charge the city.

I think it was your—

3rd one, FF&E. The FF&E is furniture fixtures and equipment. So within our fire stations, beds, refrigerators, microwaves, ovens, things of that nature, in the past, they've just found a way to, again, replace those instead of being able to maybe, number one, take advantage of replacing maybe all of them at the same time and getting discounts in relation to doing that.

But dedicated dollars for that purpose, to replace those things that wear out within a fire station on a regular basis instead of onesie-twosieing it because that's all we can afford to do.

Well, you don't think about that. I mean, their water heater goes out too, right? Just like in my house.

Correct.

Which kind of is what happened to kind of prompt this, to be honest with you. So, Okay, just— and then we'll run through these hopefully relatively quick. Uh, we, we touched on what are our streets, the dollars that we receive, um, and where those are going, um, between our, uh, the 2 taxes that we receive, an excise tax being the B&C Road Fund, as well as a public transit and highway tax over on the transportation sales tax side, and where those dollars are being, uh, spent within those, those particular projects— I mean, funds, sorry. Our debt service fund, just to give you an idea of what kind of debt we do have and the dollars associated with that. So you can see really the— we have 2 outstanding bonds that the debt service fund pays for, which is our 2019 GO bond bonds, which paid for the fitness center and the library hall. And then we have 2024 sales tax revenue bonds, which are paying for the fire training facility as well as the remodel over at the Public Safety Building, the police department. And then of course our continuing payments to cover the Utopia debt. We also do have a, a That was an energy improvement lease to— the biggest item of that was replacing all of the bulbs on the streetlights of the city from incandescent bulbs to LED bulbs. And so we continue to pay on that lease finance—

it's a lease financing arrangement.

So any questions about the debt service component? They are internal service funds. Just again, to give you an idea of what kinds of things do we do internally that they do for ourselves to support operations within the city. And these are the 5 funds that we operate that provide those services to the city as a whole. Um, Some of the additions that we added here, some IT elements in relation to some project engineers, a database administrator, and some security, as obviously the state has continued to identify need— things that we're required to make sure we take care of in the cybersecurity realm primarily, but any type of security that we may stand in need of, this person can help our staff be able to identify and work upon those as well. So then various operational components. Some of these are related to just cost increases. You know, the Google obviously continues to cost more. And then there are some changes that have to occur between us being not on an, say, on an enterprise fund, an enterprise product. Versus a government product. And so there's some changes that need to occur there with our licensing in relation to that. And then some software, various software needs, as well as some service in the air conditioning components for our backup systems and things like that. So, so various items related to their operations. Then just to— I moved this to the top because I'm not going to touch on— we already did that in the tentative budget for each of the utility funds. But just as a reminder, uh, where we, uh, sit, or what, where we think we sit in relation to all of these other entities, in relation to our total utility cost. And that, again, as a reminder, that includes our assumption of increases that are part of the budget as opposed to where all of those entities sit currently. And, and sometimes, and many of those, I think it says at the bottom, uh, yeah, table assumes— so we assumed a historical average increase. So, so I take that slightly back.

Those are taking what they currently are and making a projection of where we think that they would end up based on that 4.9 Um, briefly run through the water fund.

Um, we, we had a change to both the base rate for all of the meters, but you can see what we've listed for the 3/4 meter, as well as Tier 1 usage rates. All the tiers will be changing, but they all change approximately that same percentage. And then there's some changes over on the left-hand side. In relation to that, the fee that we started last year in relation to Jordan L and Deer Creek work. And then down at the bottom left, a new state regulatory fee that will be added to the bill to pay for regular—

that regulations that the state has placed upon us.

Water reclamation, sewer, otherwise known as sewer. Proposed base rate increases and volume charge increases. You're all well aware of all of the things that will be going on down at the treatment plant and the improvements that need to happen there. And so again, while not as large as the prior 2 years in relation to that increase, still a pretty large increase as we— and that should be continuing to as we bond for— try to go out for bonding in relation to making those improvements happen, we have some cash that we're able then to get those projects started and then be able to use bond money to keep the, keep the ball rolling, if you will. Stormwater. Again, you're all well aware of the canal abandonments that have been happening throughout the city, and the increase there is to help us us try to figure out ways to be able to do improvements to collect that stormwater now that those canals are no longer an option for us.

And so you see a rate increase in relation to the stormwater system as well.

Recreation, I think I mentioned that the rate hadn't been increased. Yeah, right there, increase hadn't No increases to the annual— there are no increases to the annual membership. The daily admission, it will increase for the first time in 3 years. And just as a side note, our indoor classes, those continue to climb as people continue to use the fitness center to do those classes. Our solid waste fund, garbage, we've renegotiated our contract with Waste Management, and so we've been Putting off, uh, trying to have any increases to citizens, um, and until now. So, and now we have a— there will be an increase in relation to those, uh, solid waste charges, which you can see the effect of that in the proposed revenue increase, because that's totally based on what our expenditures are going to be, what we expect them to be. So it's purely a pass-through, and you can see that in relation to this solid waste rate history here. And are there any questions after all of that?

Thank you.

Questions, Council? Anything that you have that— okay, Councilmember Meekum.

Sorry, I keep coming back to you.

No worries.

It's just this is my first budget rodeo, and I'm excited to learn as much as I can.

Sometimes I feel like it's my first one too.

Don't say that.

Um, the Transportation Utility Fund, we've, we've heard about that. Uh, I'm not seeing that in your presentation.

So that's not included in our budget, our tentative budget, uh, at the time when all of those requirements around Setting up that are in place, and we would be coming forward to you with a budget amendment, whatever time of year that happens to fall in, to see whether about adding that as part of our budgeting. And, and that potentially would also then—

not even potentially, it would have another—

I mean, another fund tied to that, those dollars as well.

So that will occur when that is ready to be brought forward.

So we're not trying to get that through before the fiscal year, and any funds that come through if that is approved would be directed primarily to transportation improvements.

Right.

And given that the fiscal year starts July 1st and that the timeline that you showed to us says that we're still going to be voting on budget items at the end of August, Are you asking us to approve an interim budget, um, that covers that period of time before we make final budgetary decisions? What— how do July and August work?

Yeah, so thank you for bringing that up. So the ordinance that you have before you is basically approving, um, the budget outside of those items we mentioned with a property tax increase, a dedicated The dedication of the property tax. And so that budget, that tentative budget in the language, is what the state then refers to as an interim budget.

And we would then operate under that interim budget from July 1st until August 27th, when on that TNT meeting in August, you would approve a final adopted budget at that point.

It is kind of like being in—

We're kind of dating, you know, Andrew.

I mean, we kind of think this is the budget we want to do.

We're getting a little more serious, but you know what, you're gonna pop the question on August 27th and see if it becomes—

That's a good analogy.

Okay.

Yeah, never thought of it that way, but it is good.

Got a little levity, man. Brandon, you do an outstanding job, you and your team. Trevor, well done. And so, yes, counsel, any other questions, comments on the budget before I open the public hearing?

All right.

Well, I just got a second what you say. I know we've been talking about this for weeks and weeks and weeks, and it takes you weeks and weeks and weeks and basically the whole year to get ready for this. So just, I really appreciate it, and I know our residents appreciate it as well. So to you and your team, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

I, I do have one more comment. Sorry. Uh, thanks, thanks for, uh, walking us through this and, and providing the detail and thought that you, you've done. Uh, I know all, all of us up here really want to be fiscally conservative in the way that we approach this, and I, I feel like, uh, you and other members of our staff are doing your very best to, to, uh, try to make sure that every dollar spent is spent very wisely. We appreciate that. That's something that I care a lot about, and I, I know that my colleagues care, care a lot about. Even though the proposed property tax increase is, is very small, right, and we're going to see really direct tangible benefits in terms of, of support from 2 additional police officers, which we need, um, that, you know, that small increase combined with some of the additional rate increases that people might see in terms of stormwater, in terms of water and sewer, uh, so, you know, sewer and solid waste charges as well. Uh, I, I think, you know, many of our residents might not necessarily feel a pinch from that, but there might be some that do.

Sure.

Um, and, um, so I just, I just want us to be sensitive to the, the fact that Particularly for those that are, are barely surviving, right, that some of those fee increases may not feel completely negligible and maybe, you know, they might feel it. And so I know that tonight's not the night for this conversation, but I would like us to have a conversation at some point About how do we help ensure that those that really are living on low fixed incomes who might notice and feel those differences, how do we ensure that they have opportunities to demonstrate, you know, need anytime that there is a fee or a tax increase in a way that we have their back and we can support them? Um, as well. So, uh, again, I think that you've done a really great job in terms of making sure that this is a conservative budget, um, that it's a responsible budget. Uh, we are living in a world of inflation, uh, and we need to be able to keep our staff, and we need to be able to, uh, pay the, the things we need to pay for. Um, but I, I just hope that we will continue to have a conversation between the staff and the city council about how do we ensure that those who, um, do feel pinched occasionally by this, uh, have recourse and opportunities, uh, to, to, um, demonstrate that they may need some additional support.

We, we welcome those conversations. We, we welcomed them in the past, and we certainly welcome them going forward.

I echo, I echo that as well, that I have that concern. And so I look forward to that. Council Member Millett.

So I—

and maybe just in just way to help is, you know, use our, our community, um, our civic engagement director to put out some of those programs on our social media that are available. You know, talk about it at our senior center. We do— there are some things the county offers, um, to assist with some of these increases. So I don't think it hurts to put that information out there again, and for those most vulnerable to help them.

For sure.

And yeah, and I appreciate Councilmember Meekum saying that. We're all very cognizant of that situation, and we hear about it from the residents.

So, all right.

We, we are genuinely happy to communicate and educate on those programs, and We, we do set aside funds for that, uh, for those efforts every year, and it's part of our sort of communications calendar to get that information out. So, but yes, we'll, we'll follow up on it and make sure we do so.

All right, thank you. All right, if there are no other comments from the council, it's public hearing. I'm going to open the public hearing. Um, if there's anyone here to speak to the ordinance adopting fiscal year 2026-2027 tentative interim budget, you're welcome to come up and Seeing nobody who, who will be coming up, go ahead and close that public hearing and bring it back to the council. Council, it does require— this item does require an action by us, and it has a rather, uh, if, if you—

It's pretty lengthy.

It's a long motion if you choose to make A moment. Well, it says to approve or deny, so, uh, you know, is that all one sentence? It is all one sentence.

Wow, breath in between.

You are an overachiever, Mr. Nelson.

Well, I got Steve involved, so that's why.

Oh, okay.

This looks like a Steve sentence to me.

Okay, I'm sorry, I give you credit. It should— the credit should go to Mr. Earl. Okay.

Joint effort. Yeah, it was.

Mayor, I'll make a motion All right, Councilmember Lamson. I move to approve and adopt the fiscal year 2026-2027 tentative budget as shown in Exhibit A, which will serve as the city's interim budget beginning July 1st, 2026, and ending after the date the city council adopts a final budget. Adopt all fees and charges shown in Exhibit B. Adopt the compensation programs as shown in Exhibit C. Adopt the franchise tax, municipal energy sales and use tax, telecommunications license tax, transient room tax, E911 fee rate, and adopt a proposed tax rate above the certified tax rate with a Truth in Taxation public hearing to be held on Thursday, August 27th, 2026 at 6:00 PM, at which time a final budget will be adopted.

All right, I have a motion.

I second that.

Second. The only way you could have improved that motion is if you did it in one breath.

I thought about it, and then I thought better about it.

Okay. All right, Council, we have a motion and a second to approve, uh, an ordinance adopting our fiscal '26-'27 tentative interim budget. Is there any more discussion? Right, I'm going to go ahead and vote aye. Councilmember Meekham?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Right. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you for all your, your work, all of you on this. This was a— no, it's only a few more months until we start the process over again. I'm so discouraging tonight. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be. All right. Our next item is, uh, just council, if you'd like to refer to your packet to see the Monthly financial statement for April 2026. And then we have item number 6, our city manager information item. So, we'll turn the time over to our city manager, Brent Bybee.

I just want to echo my gratitude and the alignment of us as staff with your direction and leadership in, in caring about every dollar in our budget. Thank you so much for your trust, support, confidence in us. I am very, very confident in our employees to be fully humble, hungry, and smart, to— that they do each have the continuous improvement mindset, that they do sacrifice, that they truly want to do good beyond themselves. I am super grateful for the team we have, and I know that they will continue to provide the top highest standards of quality service and do it at the best possible price to our residents. So I just want you to know that I am completely confident in our staff to execute. on the budget that you have, have so, uh, well, generously, positively supported. And, and, and the— we do not take for granted the trust you put in us to, to serve our, our dear residents. So thank you so much. And echo my thanks to, um, our financial department and our executive team and, and all of our employees. Truly, there's not a level of our organization where You, you, where we have people that don't care or that don't want to, uh, uh, give our Orem residents more. So, uh, that's all, that's all I wanted to publicly represent this evening.

Yeah, and City Manager Bybee, can I also just confirm that there's 20 minutes left of the, of the Orem Fest pool party, um, tonight, and that you will try to make it before 8 and ball into the pool as a show of support for all of our residents.

I will head there quickly.

And yes, let's all please enjoy Orem Fest. I'm sorry we had this council meeting on our fun week, but yeah, let's, let's go enjoy Orem Fest.

All right, thank you. On that note, I would look for a motion to adjourn. I don't make motions. I don't think I've ever made a motion since I've been mayor. I'm gonna make a motion that we adjourn.

Yeah, I will second it then.

All right, all those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.