19 - Memo to GB - Proposed FY24-25 Budget - July 2024 (002)

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we are working on bidding our health insurance program in FY24/25, it is still recommended that the City provide additional monthly assistance to the employees for health insurance premium expenses. Regarding item #3 –Please see Priority Item #1 in this Executive Summary for additional information. Regarding item #4 –The city last performed a comparable pay study in FY20/21 which took effect in FY21/22. It has now been four years since the last study. It is recommended these studies be performed every 3-5 years to keep up with competition. This goes hand in hand with annual COLAs so that the city might avoid drastic changes in the pay plan following each study. We have included funding to perform a new comparable pay study in FY24/25 in preparation for the FY25/26 budget process a year from now. In other words, the study will be done in FY24/25,and the recommendations will be used to influence the proposed FY25/26 budget. Pay studies are important because they balance the need to provide the employees a fair and competitive wage for attracting and retaining talent, with the expectation by the taxpayers that the city provide services at reasonably low cost. Regarding item #5 –The City contracted with Charlesworth Consulting to study its Group Insurance program, primarily its health insurance. Upon recent completion of this study, the recommendation is for the city to bid out its insurance for FY24/25. 5.Rising Costs –As has been true each of the last few years, wecontinue to seerising costsfor goods and services. Numerous line items have seen their budgets increase just due to the rise in prices for the same amount of product we are purchasing. Staff continue to work hard to find good deals on our significant purchases, but even maintaining minimum services continuesto require increases in revenue to fund. 6.Capital Projects and Purchases–With the help of ARPA, General Fund Reserve, and CARES funding, we will be undertaking several needed projects and large capital purchases.In order for the employees to do their work and fulfill the Financial Policy, they must have adequate equipment.Once again, much of the work the City provides its citizens is labor intensive.Therefore, the proposed FY24/25budget includes a series of equipment purchases.A full listing of all capital purchases planned in the Proposed FY24/25Budget can be found later in this report. 7.Reclassification of Current Employees–The FY24/25 budget includes two reclassifications of existing employees. In both situations, the City is not adding a new position, but rather taking an existing employee and substantially increasing their job responsibilities by converting their current position in to a new one. To accomplish this, their current position will be unbudgeted, and their new position, with a reasonable and appropriate pay adjustment, will be created. First, the City will reclassify Bill Loranger from Parks and Recreation Superintendent to Assistant Public Works Director. Mr. Loranger has 24 years of experience with the City of Paris, many of those as the Superintendent. He has skills and abilities thatcan be put to even greater use upon promotion to a position of higher responsibility and accountability within the City of Paris. His faithful and loyal service to the City of Paris, carefully managing the City’s Parks and Recreation departments, has proven his ability as a supervisor and leader, and we would like to tap into this to serve Paris, its council, citizens and staff at a higher level. He will continue to perform many of his current duties, delegating some to staff, but stepping up to assist the PublicWorks Director on high level matters Second, the City will reclassify Brian Dabbs from Informational Technology Technician to Network Security Supervisor. Mr. Dabbs contains an impressive wealth of IT knowledge, experience, and capability. In the ever-changingworld of cyber-crimeand online security, it is critical that the City continue to advance its defensive capabilities online to protect our critical networkinfrastructure. When our network fails, many of Page 9of 18