Alright, it's 5.30. Call a meeting to order. Madam Clerk, you can call the roll, please.

Mayor Miller? Here. Alderpersons, Klemm? Here. Johnson? Here. Simmons is absent, Parker? Here.

Stacy? Here. Shadle? Here. Sanders is absent. Sellers? Here. We have a quorum, Mr. Chair.

Join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. 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.

and that brings us to approval of the agenda if I could get a motion. So move. Second. Motion by Sellers. Second by Klemm. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion carries. Then we need an approval of the minutes from October 14th, 2025. So moved. Second. Motion by Parker. Second by Sellers. All in favor? Aye.

Opposed? That motion carries and we're down to public comments which with the lack of anybody in the audience I would say is a no. So we'll go down to number item seven which is discussion of the following budgets by city manager Boyer.

We're going to run down through public works, street budget, equipment fund for Fowler, Streets, Airport, Cemetery, Forestry, Animal Control, Traffic Engineering, Street Light, Tax, Motor Fuel Tax, and Street Improvement. Manager Boyer.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, you've gone over all of them, so I don't need to reiterate that. So let's start with Public Works.

So as we all know we currently are contracting out public works. This is where the public works director pay would come from. So there's currently nothing budgeted for an in-house public works director. Any questions on public works? Okay. Are we going to get a public director? Currently, Fehr Graham is providing all our public works Kessler.

Director needs right now.

I understand, but are we going to hire a public director?

No not this time.

Okay.

And moving down to airport.

Obviously we've got quite a bit of work going on at the airport.

We've included the airport management contract and the amount that you're seeing there is We have essentially the new contract plus the estimated CPI increase for next year, which is a standard amount.

We also have about $100,000 in contracted building repair and maintenance.

That was a carryover from 2025, and it's used to basically repair the hangar roofs.

We also are budgeting about $40,000, same as 25, for the fuel system upgrades.

We've got a tank in ground tank that will need inspection and we'll look at what requirements that that will need. The fuel tank is part of the mitigation plans that's an old tank that'll have to be replaced in the next fiscal year or two in order to meet compliance. It's very similar to the situation we had at the Street Department. New regulations coming into place and this this older tank does We've got about 15,000 budgeted for engineering. So that's generally with CMT, Crawford, Murphy, Tilly. They do the work at the airport and have been for many years. They're working on a build out plan for about 10 years. We've got a 10-year program there.

Skipping down, we've got the fuel. We're budgeting $100,000 for low lead and $80,000 for jet A. That's just a carryover. We did bump up the $100,000 low lead by $4,000. Skipping down a little further. Yes.

Why did we bump up $4,000?

I think the prices have gone up on that. I'll have to double check, but I believe that's why we did.

So we're bumping it up not knowing? Yes, we expect that the cost of fuel will be more expensive this coming year and that is all getting paid back through fuel sales. So it comes back in as revenue, different place here in the budget.

Alderman, Sellers. I just wanted to know, I know you had talked about equipment and hangers. How many hangers are out there that need to be, that you think should be done this year or will it carry over to 2027 also?

So in terms of roof repair, I'm assuming that's what you mean. Yeah, there's, I think there's a minimum of three. Darren, do you know that off the top hand? I mean, there's, there's three for sure that need to be dealt with and there's a handful of others that need to be repaired, but do you have any? Five altogether. Okay. For this year. For 20, yeah, for 2026. Yeah, that's what I meant. Repairs or replaced? Repairs. Yep.

Excuse me. We had a contractor come in and evaluate the roofs. And we were looking to replace roofs. But based on his consultation, he felt the steel while it's not pretty is in good enough shape that we can just repair the leaks and the seals and the bolts and nuts that hold it on. There's a repair method for that. And so we're moving forward with that because we can get way more for our buck. And he thinks that the roofs will, will, you know, last another 20 years as far as steelworks goes. So we're not We're not that we're kicking it down the road, but we're trying to do economy of scale to get as many of the hangers to stop leaking as possible.

Might need to be some new ridge caps as well.

Sure, yeah. Anything to make the existing roofs last longer and be watertight.

And we'll just go ahead and move down to 7052. That's IDOT grant projects.

so this is mostly the city's match so includes the local share of funding for the PAPI lights that's about $32,000 and terminal updates of $191,250. The remainder the $294,000 will be reimbursed through these grants offsetting the amount to be in revenue section of the general We've got a number of projects in the queue. This last item here is $517,000. It includes our match and the items that we will need to float cash flow until we get reimbursed.

Okay, with that, I'd like to move on to streets. Any questions on airport? Okay.

Alright, so street budget. Again, this is informed quite substantially by the amount of work that we're doing in house.

We have included a public works operations superintendent and assistant and assistant so it's a basically one-third of this person's time will be spent in the street department as well as the assistant. We've also we're going to need to update the AFSCME wages due to the fact that we've come to a contract and it's been signed. Also we're budgeting for four summer mowers, two part-time Potthole Patchers. So we've got about six part-time folks that we're planning to hire next year in the street department. Other than that's standard staff wages and benefits and withholdings. Moving on down to... Yes sir. Yeah, I just had another...

you were saying you need four mowers for the summer and what else were you looking for?

So we have... we're budgeting for two summer mowers and two additional Part-Time People to do pothole patching. Draw your attention to item 6080, books, periodicals, memberships. So we're working with the auditors and they would like us to move some items in the budget. So this is why books and periodicals membership is so much higher. So we're allowed to consolidate some funds here at the auditor's direction for 2026. We're closing the projects fund and incorporating and the two items that had in the fund into the street budget.

So that'd be the annual memberships fees for the Gene Adams Trail.

That's $20,000 per year.

And the PEC path is $100,000, will now be paid out of the street budget.

So that accounts for that change.

This is item 144-6080, books, periodicals, memberships.

In addition, we've, you know, hit a few highline items here. Now bear in mind that new equipment is going to be coming out of capital, so that wouldn't be included in the street budget directly.

But we do have some standard amounts that we've carried over from the previous year for contracted building repairs, equipment repairs, infrastructure repairs, vehicle repairs, and gear and clothing.

and Clothing.

So those are generally carried over from the previous year.

Education, training, and travel is the same as it was last year.

We have engineering at $400,000 in the street budget.

So this is increased by $50,000.

And it includes utility permit reviews, the compost permit, public works master services agreement.

And I'm sure Darren has a few other items that we worked on this year that we used.

yeah any of the general maintenance items that IDOT forces us to do all those items come out of that budget we also have street designs or specific 88 ramps things that the city workers are doing themselves that have to be designed and permitted and all those functions come out of that budget okay then moving down we've got about 60,000 for fuel diesel and the 60,000 for gasoline that's always kind of a fluid number but it's basically the same as last year. Kind of rolling down to some of these other ones we've got $20,000 in rock road material we identified that we need to increase that it's a it's about double what we did last year on that. We've got 25,000 in a sidewalk program that's increased from the previous year and then we've got 325,000 in snow removal and Stacey.

Yeah, what are the rock and road material, what's that?

So if we need to pick up some CA7, which is a backfill material, like it's got gravel and sand and stuff together, that would be an example of rock road material.

essentially it's what we need to do base repairs or do other other types of maintenance.

Twenty thousand dollars worth? Oh yeah. Grab a light Jeep. Got a few last items on the next page.

I have one other question. Sure. For our streets from our plant list, We'll get that when we get into the the street maintenance that's a little later in the presentation here the Street Improvement Fund we'll talk about that just a few highlight items here machinery and equipment we're planning to purchase a sign board arrow board mulching head for the the mini excavator dual freon machine transmission flush machine and a 24-foot trailer so that comes to about $84,000. So that those are some of the smaller equipment we plan to purchase this year. Also looking at the capital outlay, so updated repairs to the city yards, admin building, we're budgeting $100,000 for that as well. Yep.

Yes, Joy. Yeah, when you were saying all the things you were, I know I got the 20-foot trailer, but what were the, so all of these things are planned for next Fischer, what's the sign? Well, so if you know when we're doing road work, we need arrow boards and yeah, it essentially is a truck. We have one of them is gonna be a truck mounted one, one's a trailer mounted one. It kind of creates, you know, directs traffic around the construction zone, provides safety for the workers.

So the reason we want to buy sign boards is we used to have one and it was is damaged in a storm and it is no longer functional and to rent them they rent for about $4,000 a week so we need to have our own when we're doing all this road construction so we can get messages out to people quicker so they're more informed when we're working in areas.

So this $84,500 is equipment we have already purchased or we need to?

We need to and we need to replace.

We have a sign board that we need to replace and the others are equipment we need to purchase and acquire.

So those will come to the council individually?

Yes, they'll come as a resolution as we go through the 2026 year.

Okay, with that, I'd like to move on to Cemetery Fund.

This is pretty straightforward. Not a whole lot of changes here.

just touch on some high-level ones. We'll be, you know, we have a one cemetery care employee who takes care of it so the wages and benefits are here, itemized.

Also, we're kind of carrying forward the supplies and equipment. Several years ago we made some investments in the mausoleum roofs. Those are pretty much done. We made some investments in new mowing equipment and that's been done.

the machinery is being taken care of and maintained appropriately and because of the kind of the geometry of the machines themselves they they really saved a lot of time so this is just a carry forward from last year. Any questions on cemetery? Okay the next one is forestry again we've got three full-time employees in forestry and the wages and benefits are reflected there fairly everything's is pretty much the same as last year, except we've added a couple of items.

Tree assistance, so that is when we hire outside contractors to take trees out that are too big or too dangerous for us to do.

So that is included under 67, 65.

And then machinery and equipment, we're budgeting $300,000 for clam truck, bucket truck, ropes, chains and pole saw.

but the vast majority of us for the clam truck we're looking at replacing the the clam truck or the the apparatus on the back there that hydraulics get older things get worn out and we're looking at replacing that and then small equipment we're just doing the same thing we always do trim saws you know leaf blowers things that wear out break while we're out the field working any questions on forestry okay with that we'll hit animal control not a whole lot of changes here again standard changes on the AFSCME employee is our animal control officer contracted vehicle maintenance in 25 we had a van door repair that was fairly expensive but there we've removed that for next year we don't expect to have that problem again in the future and we're just adding a few items here for live trap snares and tranquilizer darts so we can be effective with animal control so but again yes no just with animal control are we all up to date with the the young man with the license and stuff I know we had to change yes we have a new animal control officer I don't believe he has all the the certifications yet so we're but that's something we're working on okay all

right if there's no questions on animal control let's move on to traffic Engineering. This is kind of stoplights, streetlights, stoplights, sorry, traffic signals I meant to say. So we're anticipating replacing the crossing at 75 at Honeywell. I think it's been brought up by IDOT that it needs to be updated and replaced, so we're budgeting for that. And then of course supplies, so whatever we have to do out there to replace like light bulbs that are burned out and that kind of thing. So any questions on traffic engineering? What do we have there? What do we have on 75th and Honeywell? There's a pedestrian crossing signal there that IDOT's telling us needs to be updated.

Olliver, Klemm. Rob, where does the state stuff show up at? I mean, the work that we do through the state, is that in a whole separate? Yes, that's not here. This is just traffic engineering. Like I said, this is traffic signals. So if we do a cost share on a replacement or something like that, that would be budgeted here. And thank you for the ones at Empire and Lincoln Douglas. Those have been fantastic. Empire and where?

Oh, yeah. Oldman Parker? No, he has the same question. Okay. Okay, but Dad would like to move on to street lights.

So we've got a few changes for this year. We're budgeting $40,000 for the Carriage Hill lights.

I'm sorry, $30,000 for Carriage Hill and an additional $10,000 for unexpected repairs.

and all 10,000 for unexpected repairs.

I don't know if anyone's been on Carriage Hill, but when they built it, they put these little cantonary lights that are not very good and they're broken.

They're very old.

And so we're looking at what we can do to at least fix the ones that we have.

The wire was kind of just direct buried in the ground.

We're thinking that it's broken somewhere, but we're not entirely sure what we're gonna end up spending on that.

But we wanted to put something in here for a budget on Carriage Hill.

then we've got electrical expense that would be back to your you know the cost of the streetlights and then or the electrical bill associated with them and then crosswalk signs I'm sorry supplies and equipment include crosswalk signs and machinery equipment include filters for all the traffic signal boxes they have a fan that keeps all the electronics cool and we have to replace those filters so any questions on streetlights?

Stacy. Yes. Yes. So you're budgeting $40,000 and you said $30,000 is going to go to Carriage Hill. Yes, $30,000 was like a loose figure that we had to repair them. They've been, I don't think they've functioned in many years. And it's, it's kind of a challenging issue because we're not sure exactly what's wrong there. Okay, so is the other $10,000 going to be for neighborhoods? Yes, we could see what we could do with that for sure. Absolutely. Okay.

any other questions on streetlights? All right motor fuel tax and I Tom this might be what you were referring to a minute ago so as you can see we've got about About a million dollars coming into the motor fuel tax on the revenue side and about a million going out and work We're budgeting a hundred thousand dollars in crack sealing obviously We have to protect the investment that we've made over the last many years Fowler.

This is the first step to doing that.

So we route the cracks that have formed over a period of time and we fill them with mastic material.

And then we have rock road material.

This is basically our asphalt for city-led projects.

So we're looking at spending about $998,000 on road material.

Any questions on MFT?

You said this is our streets, what I was talking about earlier?

This is part of it. This is part of it. So these are for the street department led projects.

So this is the materials for our pavers so we can pave the streets. Okay. Any other questions on motor fuel fund? Now this is the one everybody was I think referring to a minute ago. This is the street improvement fund. So that's where we bring in the 1% sales tax. We're for budgeting revenue of about $3.7 million, and then we're also bringing in additional $220,000 from electric tax, $155,000 through natural gas taxes, road improvement fees of $252,000, that's your water bill, and then interest income on whatever accumulates in the account.

So in 2026 we'll be allocating approximately $500,000 for engineering, 30,000 for rock road material, 30,000 for paint supplies and markings, and 3.3 million dollars for the 2026 road program. And then we'll also have a transfer to debt service because we pay for our bonds, we have a couple of bonds that we are paying for through this fund.

and the total build out of the streets.

I don't know, Darren, if you can pull that up quickly here and maybe just go over that.

It's a timely moment to kind of go over that.

Sure.

So the 26 Road Program, we have budgeted based off the list that we made a couple of years ago.

And we have some added projects to that as well.

It's a total of just over $6 million in expenditures for next year.

Some of them have water improvements on them as well.

that's where the additional funds come from.

So the first project is Dewey Street from Walnut to Locust.

That project cost is 675,000, I'm just gonna round them.

We have the two sections we're committed to on Gladewood, they're about 135,000.

We have Pershing Street, Chicago to Carroll Avenue, that reconstruction is gonna cost about $365,000.

Pershing got bought on because we're intending to fix South Carroll, and Pershing has to be addressed as well, because there's a storm issue that holds a lot of water against Carroll Street.

So in order to do one, we had to do the other.

We also have the municipal parking lot.

We were gonna try to get that done this year, but it's gonna push to next year.

And we also have the alley at the police facility behind us that most of the squad cars use.

Total project for that is about a million dollars.

Dott, South Demeter Drive, Empire to West Demeter Drive, so basically that's from Empire Street to La Cresta, then La Cresta to basically I believe it's Hillcrest, that needs all new water main on it and new street, so that project is about $1.2 million.

Benton Avenue from Winslow to Wyandotte, there's a section in there that needs new water main and that's a new street replacement.

The projected cost is $1.3 million.

Stewart Avenue from Stevenson Street to Winter Drive.

That section needs new water main as well.

Total cost of that project is 469,000.

Concord Drive was an addition from this year.

We actually put this street on and took one street off.

Concord is a total cost of about $500,000.

It's just gonna be a street replacement, very poor condition street.

Seminole Drive was from the budget for this year, about $122,000, it's one of the smallest sections we have.

South Park Crest, as I noted before, that one was removed with the permission of Alderman Klemm this year, and will be pushed to next year because we just kind of ran out of some funding.

And our final project then will be Carroll Avenue, which is in addition to this year, it wasn't on.

We kind of started Carroll and the street department wanted to finish it.

So that's going to be a surface reconditioning on that project at a cost of about $525,000.

So that'll be from Empire to South Street.

What is the repairs for Seminole? Seminole's complete surface replacement. It's alligator cracked and there's the manholes are about four inches out of the ground which cars are clipping the manholes underneath and that was Seminole was on our our project list that was established by the council. So what would cause that? Sinking of the base is what's going on over there we addressed some of those streets last year not last year the year before that we ran out of money to finish Seminole so Seminole got selected and pushed to 2026 program. Can I have a copy of your reports on the different streets you just gave? Certainly. Alderman Sellers. I was gonna ask for a list of all the streets you just named. Yep. We just finished this up last week so yeah we'll get it to everyone. Okay and the last item is capital equipment fund. So under the revenue side we've got about a hundred and seventy thousand dollars that's two cents per gallon of gas on at city limits and then we also receive nine hundred thousand dollars from general fund so we transfer that into the capital equipment fund. As far as expenditures we've already gone over the police Police Department. So for other vehicles, we're going to be looking at enterprise buyouts

so that several years ago, we did several enterprise leases and for pickup trucks and other runabouts, we'll be buying some of those out. We're also going to be, we've budgeted for a 10 yard and a five yard dump truck, and then dump body for the hook lift trucks.

We have two hook lift trucks down at the yards. We use them pretty much only in the winter We've got some machinery. We've been requested that we acquire an additional roller for our paving crews and also as we move down here, we've got various lease interest and principal payments. So any questions on the Capital Equipment Fund?

Acquire an additional roller for our paving crews and also as we move down here, we've got various lease interest and principal payments.

So any questions on the Capital Equipment Fund?

Okay, that concludes my presentation from the budget.

Is there any other discussion?

Seeing none, open to public comments, agenda or non-agenda.

And seeing none, I take a motion for adjournment.

So moved. I second. Motion by Sellers, second by Johnson. All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Thank you. We're gonna take a few minutes. We'll start in about three or four minutes.