08-26-2024 Agenda Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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Regular Council Meeting August 12, 2024 Page 5 19. Receive presentation from the Interim City Manager and Finance Director, discuss and provide direction on the FY 2024-2025 Budget for the City of Paris. Interim City Manager and Finance Director Gene Anderson presented the proposed FY 2024/2025 Budget. Mr. Vine said the budget message was sent to the Council last week and tonight they would hear a summary of the budget message. Mr. Vine reviewed the property tax rate, balance of operational funds, the financial policy, and priorities with police department pay increases being number one. Council Member Norment said she would like to see police pay higher than $66,000.00. Mayor Pro -Tem Savage, Council Member Ellis and Council Member Putnam agreed. Council Member Kessel inquired what that would do to the budget. Finance Director Gene Anderson said it would roughly add about 25% to the department budget if they increased the salaries to $70,000.00. He also said there were 14 vacant positions. Mr. Anderson said they might have to do the de-minimis tax rate which was allowed for cities with a population under 30,000. He reported this would raise $500,000.00 and would not have to go an election. He explained that the voter approval rate would amount to only about half of that. Mr. Anderson said he had gone over the budget several times and there were not enough expenditures to cut to reach $500,000.00. Council Member Kessel wanted to know how fast they could get the 14 positions filled. Chief Salter said he thought they could get five or six police officers hired next year. He also said candidates had to take the civil service exam which slows the process down. Mayor Pro -Tem Savage wanted to know if Council increased the police pay to $70,000.00 if that would create a budget problem. Mr. Anderson said if Council did the de-minimis tax rate, that he thought that would not be a problem. Next, Mr. Vine touched on the other priorities, which included the City Council Strategic Plan, the Wastewater Treatment Plan/Utility Rates/Property Tax Levy, Employee Pay and Benefits, Rising Costs, Capital Projects and Purchases, Reclassification of Current Employees, Maintaining Operational Services, Texas Property Tax Reform and Transparency, and the Street Mill and Overlay Project. Mr. Vine reviewed proposed adjustments in FY 2024-2025 budget, fire apparatus replacement, replacement programs for police cars and EMS ambulances. Mr. Vine also reviewed the breakdown of all revenues, a breakdown of all expenditures, capital outlay and departmental budgets. City Council Members expressed a desire to review some of the department budgets more in depth and discussed having budget workshops. City Clerk Janice Ellis outlined the budget calendar timeline and said if Council wanted to schedule budget workshops, they would need to do so the following week because of the timeline. She said if the second budget workshop was not needed, it would be easy to cancel but more difficult to schedule because of the required 72 hours' notice. It was a consensus of City Council to schedule budget workshops for Monday, August 19d' and Thursday, August 22nd 21. Discuss and act on three appointments to the Traffic Commission and one appointment to the Historic Preservation Commission. Ms. Ellis said appointments were made on July 8' but there were remaining vacancies and that staff re -advertised. She also said additional appointments were made on July 22"d but there were still remaining vacancies. Ms. Ellis said that Staff re -advertised again, as well as called applicants who applied for other boards and were not appointed. Ms. Ellis reported that